SOS Text
by Hollyflash
Summary: They needed a signal, in case they were too injured to find help. Texting out an SOS seemed like a decent plan, but it the end, it wasn't even that. Now Danny's caught up in something bigger than he'd ever imagined with a new, dangerous power that he can't control. A power that hasn't been seen since the Ancients sealed away Pariah Dark.
1. Stages of Grief

Ladies, Gentlemen, and variations thereupon, we are back!

Okay so: I know I said I'd have this up back in December, but my good friend Severe Anxiety disagreed. So after a test run over on AO3 to judge the reception, here it finally is!

Onwards!

* * *

 **Part 1;**

"We need to restock the first aid kit," Sam said, and broke the silence that had settled over the trio.

Tucker, who was cleaning the ectoplasm off of a sewing needle beside her, gave a grunt of agreement. Or maybe a grunt of pouring rubbing alcohol onto his leg, which was also covered in ectoplasm. At least it might help get the stain out.

Danny, still in his ghost form, struggled to sit up. "I'll see if I can grab my parents' supplies in the morn-"

"No," Tucker cut him off, and Sam walked over to shove her friend back down onto the bed. She was too rough; Danny bit down on his lip, and a tiny bead of ectoplasm slipped from between the stitches going up the length of his right arm.

"You're not moving," Sam's throat was dry. She spun around and walked back to the first aid kit. She pretended not to notice Danny's annoyed mumble.

Danny had burst into her room, half-past midnight, the right side of his body drenched in his own ectoplasm. He'd tried to throw up a shield, but Skulker had gotten a lucky hit in anyway. There'd been a deep slice from his wrist to his elbow, and Sam had bunched up her sheets to keep pressure on the wound until Tucker could get there to sew it up.

She'd tried to sew up one of Danny's severe injuries herself once. She hadn't been able to hold the needle still, and nearly dropped it in the wound twice. In his human form, Danny still had the scar on his leg. He didn't have any scars in ghost form.

"Sam," Danny said, as he sat up _again_ like he hadn't almost bled out on her floor, "are you mad?"

She almost considered saying 'no.' From how Tucker was looking at everything but the two of them, he certainly wanted her to.

She didn't say 'no.' She crossed her arms and glared. "Why the _hell_ do you keep fighting ghosts alone in the middle of the night?!"

Danny stared at her, with his stupid wide eyes and lack of understanding that people _died_ from getting their arms sliced like that. "Who else will?"

"Your parents? Valerie? _Vlad? "_

"Vlad definitely wouldn't." Danny rolled onto his left side, and propped himself up with the wall and a stack of now-green blankets. "And Valerie or my parents would get hurt. I-"

"Got your arm sliced open because you forgot you could go intangible." Tucker said, and slammed the first aid kit closed. "Again."

Danny formed his mouth into a little 'O.' "Guys, I'm sorry-"

"What if you weren't close enough?" Sam asked, "What if you couldn't get here in time, and you bled out in some alley somewhere? We would have no idea where you were, or that you needed us-"

"You can't keep doing this, dude." Tucker cut in. "You need to stop hunting ghosts at night."

"And put them off until morning, when I have to get to school, and didn't get any sleep the night before because my ghost sense kept waking me?" Danny raised an eyebrow and made an effort at crossing his arms. "Yeah, survey says; bad plan."

"It's going to be summer in a week," Sam said, "you could at least try it before you sass us."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Okay, what about this; I keep protecting people, no matter what time, since it's kind of my thing, but if things go bad- _if,_ guys. It was a lucky hit- I'll shoot you an s.o.s. or something and I'll tell you where I am."

"A text," Sam said, "you're going to get badly injured and then you're going to text us. What are you, Tucker?"

 _"Hey!"_

It was a dumb moment. It was a poor attempt between a group of sixteen-year-olds to be serious, and to deal with something no one their age should ever have to.

Three months later, just after two in the morning, Danny darted around Skulker. He teased the other ghost how quiet he was, and found himself honestly annoyed by the lack of witty banter. Skulker grabbed his shoulder, and Danny turned intangible to slip away.

A thin, sharp blade pierced his left side anyway, and cut halfway through him before Skulker pulled it out.

The ectoplasm Danny choked out was dotted with red and splattered as brown on the rooftops below.

.-.

 _[Sent 2:12 am] Danny: sos home_

 _[Seen 11:47 am]_

.-.

Tucker knew where the Fentons kept their spare house key. Sam knew how to scale the side of Fenton Works and open Danny's window. Instead, they called Jazz when they were halfway there.

They told her to check his room, and she screamed. That was the end of the call.

Sam and Tucker found police outside, and stretched halfway down the block. A lone ambulance was parked in front of the house, and they could see Jazz wrapped in a shock blanket as she sat on the steps, surrounded by police officers and paramedics. A trail of ectoplasm dripped down the side from Danny's half-open window, stubbornly clinging to the bricks despite how hard it had rained the night before.

No Danny. They couldn't get close enough to check the house.

They didn't really need the confirmation, anyway.

.-.

Their parents picked them up, and in their individual rooms Sam and Tucker were sat down with their family and told the news.

Danny was missing. There was no body, but his room had been coated with ectoplasm. There was blood, too- far too much of it, far more than any human would be able to lose- but the police were focusing on the ectoplasm. The Guys in White had been called in, and the official theory was that Danny had been kidnapped by a ghost. The Guys in White would ask them the next day if they knew of any ghosts with a grudge against Danny.

Sam and Tucker knew nearly fifty by name. They shared none of them.

.-.

Sam didn't sleep for a week.

She kept playing the night over in her mind. She was going to surprise her grandmother with breakfast in bed as thanks for convincing her parents to let Sam have a second greenhouse, and needed to be up early. So, she'd gone to bed at nine.

Tucker had been out with his parents, attending some sort of dinner party two hours away, and had been exhausted when he got home. He'd fallen asleep an hour before Danny's text, and hadn't woken up until just before noon. Sam didn't check her phone until then.

So she stayed up for a week, phone on and in her hand at all times. Just in case.

Just in case.

Her parents checked her into the hospital after the week was up, and she missed the first day of school.

.-.

Tucker knew the search for Danny had just turned into an effort to recover his body after the first three days. No one thought they would find Danny alive after the first week had past. Tucker wanted to prove them wrong, but he was stuck at home. His parents wouldn't take his eyes off him, like they thought he'd be snatched up by a ghost next.

He went to school on the first day alone, with his mom promising to be waiting for him the second his last class ended. When they were fourteen, his birthday had fallen on the first day of classes, so Sam and Danny had found a way to get in early and hang banners wishing him a happy birthday in every hall. Balloons and confetti had fallen from the ceiling when he entered.

His sixteenth birthday would be in a few days, and he'd be celebrating it alone.

When you're the friend of a kid who died and another who's found herself in the hospital in highschool, people stare. People offer false condolences, because they feel they have to. Teachers give you pitying looks in every class. They say you can take your time with the work they assign, and say you can talk to them whenever you need to. They strongly recommend that you talk to someone.

Tucker talked to no one, and kept his phone in his hand at all times.

.-.

Valerie Gray wasn't an idiot.

Fenton disappeared, and so did Phantom. Vlad was a half ghost, and as a human he was friends with the Fentons. Dani was a half ghost, and she looked just as much like Danny Fenton as she did Danny Phantom.

It wasn't hard to connect the dots.

Danny was gone, his family was grieving, and Guys in White were useless: there was no one else to protect Amity Park. So, it fell on her. It all fell on her.

The ghosts didn't stop coming, but the ones everyone in Amity knew by name did. Skulker, Ember, Technus, even the Box Ghost quit showing up. A month ago, Valerie would have done anything to get them to leave the town alone. Now, it was just unnerving. Hundreds of low-level ectopusses would be roaming the town at any time, but none of the humanoids returned. Valerie couldn't help but wonder exactly what Danny had to do with that.

But every time she did, she'd shake her head and focus on something else. Even in a town where the dead ran rampant, Valerie doubted she'd ever be able to ask him.

.-.

Sam and Tucker received a text from Jazz two and a half weeks after Danny disappeared. It was the first conversation they'd had with any Fenton since they'd lost Danny, the first hint that anything had happened, and it was just two words.

 _Jazz: They know._

Neither of them had to ask what it meant.

.-.

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz met in front of the school for the first time in nearly a month. It was even more awkward than they'd expected.

"How have your parents been taking... everything?" Sam asked, after they'd sat in silence for nearly four minutes.

"Badly," Jazz said. "They were blaming themselves before they knew he was half-ghost. And Vlad won't leave us alone."

A cold, collected rage sunk its claws into Sam's chest. "What?"

"He's been living in the guest room. He even brought his cat." Jazz continued, "He won't leave my parents alone. When I told them about... everything... I had to tell him. He just acted like he didn't know."

Tucker sat up a little straighter and looked over them both. "Vlad can duplicate _really_ well, right? How do we know he doesn't have Danny?"

Their moment of silence lasted barely that- a _moment-_ before the three were rushing towards Fenton Works. They'd come up with a real plan as they went; all that was important now was Danny.

.-.

Vlad was the only named ghost still in town, and he'd been willing to torture a little girl. Everything about him just screamed evil, and if anyone had an explanation for what exactly was going on Valerie was positive it would be him.

Breaking in was easy; he had no defenses against humans with ghost hunting suits. Trying to find that lab again was harder. Breaking through the floor would be too obvious; she needed to find the door.

Valerie dismissed her hoverboard and stepped into a study with a gigantic picture of Vlad's face on the wall. "Gross," she whispered, and started to search the fireplace. That was where normal evil dudes put their secret entrances, right?

The ghost tracker in her suit gave a faint _ding!_ And Valerie froze. It had never sensed Vlad before, and he hadn't made any modifications. Did he have lackeys?

She turned around and saw the robotic ghost Skulker. He was still, with a long green knife in hand. She saw traces of dried blood along the blade.

"Did you kill _Vlad?!_ " She shouted, and the ghost took a step towards her. He didn't float, he _walked._

Valerie took a step back and bumped into the fireplace. There was a grinding sound, and Valerie looked back for only a second to see the stairs appearing behind her. In that second, Skulker lunged.

His sword hit the material on the back of Valerie's head, and she stumbled- pain stung the back of her skull in a crooked line, and she saw several locks of her hair on the ground.

 _He's trying to kill me._

Valerie dodged the next strike and threw herself down the stairs, tucking and rolling to avoid any more damage. She spun around, ectoweapon ready- and saw nothing.

"What the hell is happening?" She whispered, and looked over the lab. Vlad's ghost portal was wide open, but the counters were covered with a layer of dust. No one had been down here in weeks. Valerie turned back to the stairs, and looked up- Skulker was standing there, hair no longer blazing and the lights on his suit dull. But he was blocking her way out.

Valerie turned back around and looked over the empty lab. No Vlad. For all she knew, Skulker actually had killed him. She lifted a hand to the back of her head, and pulled back a glove covered in blood. Her vision wavered, and she sat on the ground. _He was trying to kill me. He was trying to kill me._ Repeating it did nothing to make it all feel more real.

She wondered if this was how Danny had felt.

There was a beep, and a crash. Valerie fumbled with her little pistol just in time to take aim at Skulker as he flew down the stairs. His left arm dropped out of the socket, sickly-looking dark green ectoplasm dripped out with it. The world seemed to be moving too slow, and Valerie took another shot- her weapon sparked and spit out a semi-solid chunk of dark green ectoplasm instead.

"Oh, gross-" she chucked it, and whacked Skulker in the face. It did nothing to stop him from raising his sword.

A floating submarine with Fenton Works on the side shot out of the portal and smashed Skulker into the opposing wall.

Valerie made eye contact with Tucker when he hopped out of the side, and had never been so relieved to see him in her life.

Skulker was up again, gross ectoplasm dripping from the damage on his suit. Tucker grabbed Valerie's arm and hauled her onto the ship, shouting something that didn't quite register with Valerie's ears. Head injuries bled far more than they had any right to, and it was making her woozy.

She saw Sam, wearing a satellite on a bracelet around a wrist, and Jazz, armed with a huge Fenton Bazooka. Sam landed a hit on Skulker's face, and the head snapped back, barely holding itself in place with ectoplasmic strings and sparking wires. Jazz's shot missed, but she swung the bazooka around and smacked the sword-wielding hand off his wrist.

Tucker was in front of Valerie now, shining a little flashlight in her eyes. Valerie tried to shove him away, and noticed she wasn't in her suit anymore.

She had no idea when she'd dropped it.

She had no idea how long she'd been down there.

.-.

Sam fired the wrist ray into Skulker's face and he dropped into a broken, rusted, ectoplasm-covered clump.

"Okay?" She said, and took a step forwards. "He just fell apart."

Jazz pulled her back and carefully, using the nozzle of the bazooka, she sorted through the rubble until they found the actual Skulker.

Wires dug into his twitching, glitching form. He'd turned himself into part of the suit, and dark black lines spun out from around his core. He opened one eye, and part of his form dripped off.

Sam reeled back, gagging. "Holy-"

"How...?" Jazz was calmer. She had to be, her only other option was to start sobbing. She knew this ghost hunted Danny. She _knew_ he'd constantly been after her brother. "What happened?"

Skulker's eye drifted closed. His voice wavered. "I won."

"Won what?" Jazz asked, and more of Skulker's form dripped away. "Do you know what happened to my brother?"

There was the faintest hint of a smile on Skulker's face, and Jazz aimed her bazooka right at it. "I won," He said again, and twitched a hand. The bloody sword sparked, and Jazz fired.

Skulker was gone, with just a smear of ectoplasm in his place. A cracked and twisting ball of energy shattered.

"That's for Danny," Jazz choked out, and her gun clattered to the floor.

.-.

It was wrong.

She knew Danny wouldn't have wanted this. Danny would never want anyone to get hurt like this. But her little brother was gone.

It was starting to sink in that there was no redo here. He wouldn't be coming back.

.-.

Vlad didn't know what had happened to Daniel, but if the Guys in White had been the cause of it he wouldn't be surprised. Daniel was half human, there was no logical reason he could have disappeared like that. Either they had his body, or evidence that could lead Vlad to it.

And at this point, the closure was all he wanted.

He sat beside Jack, with Maddie on the man's other side, and two agents from the Guys In White across from them. That, of course, was not their actual name- the Government Initiative for Unnatural Understanding was- but out of everything that had changed since Vlad's college years, his absolute lack of respect for the organization had not. Their name meant nothing; they were simply a waste of tax dollars, and Vlad would prefer they were as far away from him as possible.

His own experiences had absolutely nothing to do with that opinion and Vlad would sue anyone who said differently.

The agents across the room from them were a muscular redheaded woman known as Agent Q and dark-skinned man who was obviously a new hire and claimed his name to be Agent 214B. Their actual names were Marianne and Mark, respectively. Their disgrace of an organization really needed to spend more on developing a halfway decent security system.

Regardless, Agent 214B at least had the grace to look upset with how little information they were apparently finding. Agent Q did not. She had no emotion and, frankly, it was a bit disturbing.

"Our Ghost Zone Probes have not detected any trace of real-world materials," Agent 214B said, further proving the incompetence of the Guys is White. Materials from the _Human Realm_ were always ending up in the Ghost Zone. "Which is odd, and we will be looking into more thoroughly." _You had better be._ "As it currently stands, it seems unlikely that your son or his remains are in the Ghost Zone."

Vlad kept himself composed, but swore internally. He had searched the Ghost Zone as well, but most of the boy's allies had been rather uncooperative. Those of the Far Frozen especially had made an effort to prevent him from gathering any information. Vlad had been hoping the Guys in White would have more luck. He had none, so surely the bar would be low enough? _Apparently not._

"Are you alright, Mr. Masters?" Agent Q asked, "You look rather upset."

Vlad placed a hand on his chest- over his core, of course. An unintentional residual ghostly habit. "How can I not be? We're nearing a month since this horrible incident and you have found nothing that could explain what happened to my nephew." Jack placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Vlad hated it.

Agent Q _tsk_ ed and stood up. "We will take a short break. If you all will excuse me, I have a phone call I must take." She left the room, and automatically, Vlad sent an invisible duplicate to follow her. If Agent Q wanted to be suspicious, she deserved this.

Agent Q moved swiftly through the kitchen and out the backstory before pulling out a white cell phone. After a moment, she was speaking into it. "Give me some good news, Stone."

It was only through advanced ghostly hearing that Vlad heard the man's voice on the other end. "Andrew's dead."

Agent Q's face twisted; she looked genuinely upset. "How?"

"Burn marks, suspicious circles- definitely ecto-based." Stone took a breath in, and Vlad filed that information away. _What ghost would be stupid enough kill one of them?_ "His son has the primary target's code name."

There was a brief moment of silence. "Suspicious, but it's just a name."

"It is exactly the same. And the boy claims to have killed him." Stone added on, "He was born February 17, 1997-" that was Daniel's birthday, "-and has tested positive for ectoplasmic residue. I think it might be time to instigate the primary objective."

Vlad snarled. The primary objective was the only thing they bothered to keep guarded, and if it involved a boy Daniel's age- never mind the ectoplasmic residue, and the oh-so-many things it could mean- he refused to let it continue.

"...This line is not secure," Agent Q said, "grab the boy, bring him to us. Do what you have to, Agent Z."

"Roger that."

The call ended, and Vlad returned to his body. The Guys in White experimented on teenagers now. They really had sunk that low. Very well then, he'd tail them and infiltrate the organization. It shouldn't be too hard.

In the basement, something exploded, and the power went out.

Vlad felt his core twist and knew there was a ghost nearby.

.-.

The trio-turned-quartet landed the Specter Speeder in a dark basement. Valerie's injury had been shallow, and had already scabbed over. Her hair had taken the brunt of the damage.

Jazz, who had scooped the remains of Skulker into a dusty beaker, stepped out first and placed it on the counter. Across the room from her, something fell over.

Jazz spun on her heel, bazooka already balanced on her shoulder. "Show yourself!"

"What's up?" Tucker called as he poked his head out of the Speeder.

Jazz didn't reply, and as the silence continued, she reached for her keys. There was a tiny flashlight attached to them, and she gave the room a quick scan. Nothing.

And then two Guys in White agents crashed down the stairs with their guns drawn.

.-.

Three teenagers, a young adult, three sets of parents, and half of another stood in the kitchen. Vlad had quietly excused himself, and the Guys in White had left to attend to other business.

Maddie allowed herself a moment of hope. "Did you find him?"

"We found Skulker," Sam said, and glanced at her own parents. "He was a ghost who... didn't really like Danny. He kept saying that he'd won and had a bloody knife."

"He tried to kill me," Valerie said. She didn't look her Dad in the eye.

"He won't hurt anyone ever again," Jazz finished, and held up the beaker.

.-.

Grief is hard. It's not linear, or a hump you need to get over. It's a tumbleweed, twisting in and around itself as you take two steps forward, twelve steps back, and somehow end up better than you were when you started. Then the next day, you're worse again. It's repeating that until the empty feeling in your chest goes away, while being convinced that it never will.

Grief is trying to find someone to blame, and putting your life on the line as well, because the concept of being alone again after your breath of having someone just like you is impossible. It's finding nothing, and continuing to try- because what else can you do, but try again?

It's going over everything you've ever made, looking at all the parts that could have hurt him- and remembering how they did, and how you were so proud to be hurting your _own son-_ and trying to change them. It's spending weeks barely sleeping, because the least you can do is make sure you never hurt anyone like you hurt him ever again

It's avoiding that one room- his room, the room that held everything that remained of him- because it was right there, just down the hall, and you had not idea what was happening in it. It's knowing you could have prevented everything if you'd simply looked inside, but keeping that door closed. Because you failed, and now he's gone.

It's holding your phone in your hand every hour of every day, it's staying up all night just in case something happens. It's taking over the job of someone you _hurt_ because anything's better than dwelling on what's lost. It's standing up and leaving the school assembly that's the closest thing to a funeral he's going to get, because staying and speaking would mean giving up on that illogical hope there's a way out of this.

It's the knowledge that you can't change the past, but scouring the Ghost Zone because you know- _you know,_ you've read your brother's files- there's a ghost that controls time. And if you can find him, you can fix this.

It's not finding him. It's not finding anyone or anything. It's dead end after dead end, disappointment after failure as you plead for a redo. It's knowing you'll never get that. It's knowing he's not coming back.

It's an apology he'll never hear.

And that's only the beginning.

.-.

Late November, the phone in Fenton Works rang. Jack was the only one home. Maddie and Jazz were out with Vlad, who was treating them to a spa day. Jack had turned the offer to join them down.

He picked up the phone, and threw on some false cheer. "Fenton Works, this is Jack Fenton speak-"

"Hi, Dad." For the first time in three and a half months, Jack heard his son's voice. It was strained and rough, with every word sounding like it took more energy than the last. "Um... I might need a ride."

* * *

Those of you who've read the old version know how most of this goes. For those of you who don't, _boy_ are you in for a treat. The lore is clearer and the pacing is leagues above the old version. There's much less dicking around this time folks, I know exactly where we're going and how we're gong to get there. Hopefully, we'll get to the good stuff faster this time.

Alrighty, that's all for now! I'll have Chapter 2 up later this week for various fun reasons, but until then, thoughts? :D


	2. Recovery (not Acceptance)

Aw, you all are so nice! Thanks for the sweet reviews, you guys! Here's the quick update I promise, and it will probably never happen again. ^^'

There'll be some random rewrite notes at the bottom, for those of you who are interested. Until then, onwards!

* * *

 **Part 2;**

"I might need a ride."

"Where are you?"

"Uh... I don't know." He paused, and Jack had already grabbed a coat. "A- a bridge? I'm under a bridge."

"Tell me about the bridge." He was close. He had to be close. Danny hadn't replied yet. "Danny-"

"Sorry, sorry!" Danny hissed in obvious pain, and Jack was already at the door. "There's a river under here, with lots of rocks... the bridge looks really old. Everything's a bit snowy." He coughed, a dry and cracking sound.

Automatically, Jack could picture the old bridge over the Elmerton River. It was falling apart, and should have been condemned years ago. He imagined it falling on his son. "I'll be right there."

.-.

In 1939, Jack's Grandfather had moved his family to Amity Park to research what he believed to be a weak point in dimensions right over the Elmerton River. Later, in what the man would surely claim supported his theory, there was an urban legend that the bridge was haunted by a girl who'd thrown herself from it in '89. Jack and Maddie had moved back to Amity after college, planning to research the weak point in realms around that bridge. They'd found a much stronger point where they now lived, and the bridge had slipped from relevance.

But Jack had remembered the fastest route to it anyway.

He didn't have a cell phone, and the house phone had gone out of range precious minutes ago. With every moment that passed, fear dug deep into the back of his mind. This could be a trap. It was too convenient, and it could very easily be some sort of ghostly trick. But he didn't stop.

The old bridge was in poor shape, and the recent cold weather had not been kind to it. Pieces had fallen into the river, leaving the guardrail almost entirely missing along one side. A significant amount of the light, powdery snow looked like it had been blown to the other side. Still, Jack drove up- and for the first time in three months, he saw his son.

Danny was in his pajamas, left side stained with dried ectoplasm and blood. He was pale, shivering, and was sitting with his knees drawn close to his chest.

Jack knew he should hesitate. He should take some time to make sure this was Danny, or at least grab an ectogun just in case, but then Danny gave a poor attempt at a smile and a halfhearted wave and Jack flung himself out of the RV. In a second, he'd scooped up his son and was holding the freezing teen to his chest. Through the jumpsuit and his coat, Jack could feel Danny's heart beat.

"Hi, Dad," Danny sounded so tired, "can you put me down-"

"No." He was going to keep Danny in his arms, where nothing could take him away again.

"Oh." Danny coughed, "O-okay, uh-" Jack shifted his son, pulled his coat up and draped it over Danny. "I can explain, uh... I..." another cough. His son wouldn't stop shivering. "Dad, are you okay?"

Jack was probably crying. "I thought you were dead."

"Oh. Dad, no, I'm so-" he coughed again, and placed a hand on the center of his chest. He sucked in another raspy breath, and a tremor wracked his form. Danny curled in on himself, shaking more furiously than before, and still clutching his chest.

Jack practically threw him into the RV's passenger seat and barely remembered to pull his seatbelt down. The whole time, Danny shook, and clutched his chest. For a few brief seconds, his entire left side turned invisible.

Jack made sure Danny's heart was still beating before speeding away. He knew the quickest route to the hospital, too.

.-.

Maddie, Jazz, and Vlad came home to an empty house and a missing phone. It was Jazz who got the call, but Vlad who answered for her.

It took two words before they were rushing to the hospital as well.

.-.

 _[Sent 4:23 pm] Jazz: South Mercy hospital, meet me out front._

 _[Sent 4:24 pm] Sam: oh God what happened_

 _[Sent 4:24 pm] Jazz: Tell Tucker Danny's alive._

 _[Seen 4:24 pm]_

.-.

They were in class when Sam checked her phone- as she did every few minutes- and suddenly froze. Tucker watched her frantically text back, and the phone slide from her hands. He started to reach for his own- the teachers weren't as lenient with him anymore as they were with Sam, he had to keep his out of sight- but Sam was faster. She grabbed her stuff and Tucker's shoulder, barely giving him time to grab his bag before she was pulling him out.

"Miss Manson," Lancer started to say, "where are you-"

She spun around and stared him in the eye. "Danny's alive."

Tucker's knees nearly buckled and he barely registered Valerie jump to her feet and rush to join them. "Where?" Her voice sounded so far away.

"Hospital," Sam replied, and the three of them didn't wait to be excused.

.-.

 _He's dehydrated, and likely hasn't had a good meal since he disappeared. He was stabbed by something long and thin, which pierced part of his stomach and one of his lungs. He's tested positive for near-fatal levels of ectoplasmic contamination, has two broken ribs, and he has almost a hundred older injuries that are very concerning. He had stitches fused into his right arm, from the elbow to the wrist, that show traces of a possible infection._

 _I'm going to be honest, Mr. Fenton. It's a miracle you found your son alive, let alone conscious._

.-.

The trio of teenagers met Jazz out front, just like she'd promised, and the seven of them waited for a chance to see Danny. The doctors were evasive, and kept telling them to wait.

Vlad, personally, found that absolutely suspicious.

While the others discussed how Daniel could have survived- in plain hearing range of many normal humans who could piece together his secret if they continued for a moment longer- Vlad debated finding Daniel himself. It would only take a moment, he could overshadow a nurse and examine the files without an issue. However, if he stayed he could console Maddie... Daniel or Maddie, _hm..._

"Maybe Clockwork saved him," Tucker suggested, and Vlad automatically turned and left. There was no way the reclusive Master of Time cared enough about something like this to get involved. A being like that had more important things to worry about.

Finding Daniel's room was easy, but the moment Vlad was on the floor he found a complication. Agent 241B of the Guys in White stood at attention in front of Daniel's door.

In human form, Vlad approached the man. 241B held out his hands and started to stammer. "Er, Sir, I apologize but this is official GIUU business-"

Vlad held up a hand to shut him up. Agent 241B was certainly too young to have been part of the Guys in White during Vlad's experience with them, and that was one of the few things that held him back. "I want to see my Godson."

"Er... I can't allow that, I apologize-"

"And why not?" If this was anyone else, Vlad would have overshadowed him by now. As it was, he was strongly contemplating the risk.

Agent 241B fumbled with a badge. His incompetence would be amusing if it was anyone but Daniel on the line. "Official G-I-double-U business, I apologize-"

 _Enough._ Vlad smacked the badge out of his hand and forced the door open. Locks meant nothing to a half-ghost.

Two agents stood at the end of Daniel's bed, one with a needle in hand and the other with a bruise forming on her arm from a surely excellent kick. The boy himself had nearly fallen out of bed, and taken the multitude of machines attached to his arm with him. Daniel was pale and gaunt, his appearance far too much like a corpse for even a half-ghost. He looked _awful._

Vlad steeled his gaze on the two agents. "He is a minor."

"He's contaminated with ectoplasm," one of them held up his hands. Vlad recognized the voice from a few months back; Agent Z was here, and absolutely underwhelming. He was a man of average height and build, with a plain face and nothing that made him seem special. "As stated in the Federal Anti-Ecto Control Act-"

"He is a minor," Vlad said again, and stepped into the room. "If you are to take samples, a parent or guardian must give written consent and be present." He motioned to the room around them, "Maddie and Jack are in the lobby. I'm sure they would be more than willing to discuss their son's condition."

"Z," the woman beside him said, "protocol states that we-"

"Go bother someone else?" Daniel offered. His voice was rough, and three sets of eyes turned towards him. He was shuddering, and had one hand under the barely-fabric of his hospital gown. He looked over at Vlad, and the older hybrid could barely make out the shape of Daniel's hand over his core.

Vlad crossed over to Daniel's side, hands clasped behind his back. "Leave, or you will be hearing from my lawyers."

The two agents gave each other a look. _Good._ There were very few occasions when threats of legal action would not work. "We'll be back," Z said.

"Don't bother." Vlad didn't watch them go; Daniel already had that covered. The door closed, and in seconds Daniel was pulling towards the opposite side of his bed.

"Yeah, thanks Plas-"

"Don't." Vlad cut him off, "Did they leave anything behind?"

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Uh..." he coughed, beating a fist against his core. It did nothing to improve his voice. "R-right. Like, bugs or... no? You're th-the only one who does creepy stuff like that, Vlad."

Vlad's arms dropped back to his side. "Of course." An invisible duplicate formed and began to search the room. It wasn't the safest plan, but he didn't have time for anything else. The rest of his energy went to keeping himself carefully composed. "Daniel?"

The eyebrow rose a bit higher. "Vlad?"

"Where the hell have you been?"

Daniel stared at him. "Did- did you just _actually_ swear?"

"There are more important things to focus on, boy!" Vlad snapped, "It has been nearly three and a half _months!_ Where have you been?!"

It was almost adorable how Daniel tensed at that, already on the defensive. Unfortunately, Vlad had run out of patience months ago, when his ally and trusted friend had attempted to murder Miss Gray. His duplicate reported back; the room was clear.

"Why should I tell _y-you_ anythi-" he didn't finish the word before Vlad had stepped forward and slipped into Daniel's body. An advantage to overshadowing was how you could look through another person's memories, after all.

Vlad found what he was looking for easily enough. He saw through Daniel's eyes, and felt the whispering remains of the sword that dug into his side. There was something wrong with Skulker- Daniel choked up blood as the weapon was removed, and he just kept smiling. Skulker valued the thrill of the hunt, not the thrill of the kill. This was _wrong-_

Something exploded under them. Daniel was blasted away from Skulker in a dark sparking wave of force, and Vlad smashed against the opposing wall.

Slumped across the room from the younger hybrid, Vlad found himself back as a human. Daniel slammed the button to call his nurse as he stared Vlad down, ears still ringing from the impact. The shadows around Daniel seemed to shift, and dark drifts of energy danced around his arms as he stared Vlad down "Stay _the hell_ out of my head."

.-.

They heard that Vlad had- apparently, according to Danny- injured himself wrestling with the Guys in White stationed by his room long before any nurse even brought up seeing her brother. When they were eventually allowed, it was family only.

Danny was frail and thin. Barely skin and bones, nearly emancipated, and from the sound of his voice, it hurt to talk. But still, he gave the three of them a smile. "I'm sorry," he said. He held out his arms, and three of them rushed in.

For at least an hour, the four of them simply sat there, holding each other tight. Danny was taller than he'd been three months ago, and Jazz kept expecting to wake up from the dream she was still half convinced this was.

"Where were you?" She whispered, "I tried everything- the boomerang, we checked the Ghost Zone, I even tried to find Clockwork. What happened?"

Danny was silent for a very, very long moment. "I... Skulker was there, and then- and then-" he was shaking.

"You don't have to tell us right now," Maddie said, "you can wait until you're ready-"

"N-no," Danny said, "that's not the- I- I can't..." he sucked in a breath, and clenched a fistful of Jazz's shirt. "I don't remember."

.-.

The next two weeks were full of tests. Danny had been injured- had only _nearly_ bled out, despite the state of his room suggesting otherwise- from a wound on his left side. It had scarred, and the flesh only seemed to be getting darker. Their family sent in cards; everyone except for Jack's mother was too far away to come in person, and she wasn't as young as she once was. The table beside Danny's hospital bed filled up with flowers and gifts, and far more knitted trinkets from his grandmother than Danny knew what to do with. Sam baked a batch of his favourite cookies- gingerbread, ironically, considering his feelings about Christmas- and Tucker brought the rerelease of the handheld Doomed game. Valerie brought him a stuffed dog that looked almost like his crazy ghost dog, and hoped he would get the hint.

Sam and Tucker's gifts were left on the table, unopened.

Jazz, eventually, caught her brother alone. He was rarely ever alone- Vlad had placed his own personal guards outside the door at all times, and her parents only left to sleep and shower. And they rarely did either of those _before_ they'd nearly lost Danny. "Hey, Little Brother," she said, "is there anything you're not telling me?"

Danny stared at her for a long moment, and Jazz couldn't help feeling like something was wrong. "No?"

"You know you can tell me anything, right?" She tried.

"Yeah, I know," he quit looking at her. The lights in the room dimmed a fraction. "If I remember anything, I'll give you a shout."

He didn't bring it up again. So, neither did she.

.-.

"Danny," Maddie started to say one day, "Sam and Tucker have been asking when they can come see you."

Danny hummed, but continued to poke his pudding cup instead of replying. Beside him, still wrapped gifts from his once best friends sat untouched.

"You'll probably be able to go home soon," She couldn't really ask Vlad to keep funding the hospital stay when none of the tests had found anything. "Maybe we could throw you a little party?"

"No thanks," he continued to twirl the spoon. "I don't want to deal with a bunch of people."

"Of course." She wasn't going to make him. Still, Maddie had promised she'd at least try. "What about just a few? Sam, Tucker, and your friend Valerie all want to see you."

Danny stabbed his spoon into the pudding cup and shoved it away, throwing his hands to the back of his neck. "I, uh, have to go. Bathroom."

Maddie was quick to help him up. "Do you need a hand-"

"Mom, ew, _no._ " Danny shook his head. The rest of him shook as well. "I'm fine."

Maddie sighed, and grabbed her son's arm. Hands still on the back of his neck, she helped him walk to the bathroom. A tiny burst of static jumped from Danny's arm as she pulled her hand away- and for barely a heartbeat, she considered how odd that was when he was in bare feet on a cement floor.

.-.

Danny was barely allowed to go to the bathroom on his own. Someone always tried to follow him; either a nurse, or his family, or one of Vlad's dumb guards. It sucked. He could understand his family, kind of, but did everyone else really have to be so clingy?

Danny sat on the floor, staring at his hands. His core was churning again. He closed his eyes for just a moment, and focused on that. He didn't dare try to bring out his ghost half. Maybe this time he could turn intangible, or make a bit of ice-

Black sparks shot out of his fingertips and Danny yelped. "Nope!" He jumped to his feet and shoved his hand under the already-running facet. The sparks seemed to fade away.

Danny took a deep breath in. He took another. He couldn't start shaking again; his nurses freaked out whenever his core built up enough energy to make him shudder. He just had to focus, and stay calm. As long as he was calm, the sparks stayed away. None of his other powers were working, but his core twisted and hummed as it filled up to a limit Danny never knew it had. He needed to find some way to let it out in a way that wasn't with those black sparks.

Last time he'd tried that, he'd destroyed half a bridge.

.-.

"He's not going to forgive us, is he?"

Jazz sighed, and watched two of the people who had meant the world to her brother take it as agreement. Sam went still, and stared down at the untouched, dry pastry she'd ordered. Tucker squeezed the table hard enough that his arms shook, and stared at Jazz, waiting for her to officially answer his question.

The three of them were in a restaurant just across from the hospital. Sam had wanted to wait inside, in case Maddie's conversation with her son miraculously went so much better than they thought it would- just in case Danny asked for them. But they'd barely stepped through the entrance before Tucker's old fear had returned with a vengeance. He'd froze, she'd panicked, and neither of them would be attempting that again unless Danny asked for them.

Jazz licked her lips and didn't meet Tucker's gaze. "He's been through an incredibly traumatic incident. I'm sure he will, you just have to be patient."

They'd _been_ patient. Before, Danny wouldn't have wasted any time after getting a serious injury to let them know he was fine. Now, it was like he was trying to forget they existed. And Tucker couldn't say that he blamed him.

"I just want things to go back to the way they were," Tucker admitted.

"We all do," Jazz promised, "and they will. I promise. Just give him time."

.-.

His parents kissed him goodbye, and Danny was left alone for the night. He laid in bed, trying to breathe evenly and not start shaking. He could feel _everything_ running from his chest to his hands, pooling there in his fingertips. If he started shaking, there'd be more of the black sparks, and he _really_ didn't want to mess up the hospital room. So, _close your eyes, deep breaths, think happy thoughts._ _Five second breath in, seven second breath out, five seconds... or is it the other way around?_ His breath came out in a freezing, fogged puff.

Danny's eyes snapped open as his ghost sense dissipated, and he froze in place. His core ached with a familiar chill, pulling him downwards to investigate. But the hospital had a basic ghost shield, how could there be a ghost close enough for him to sense? Had one formed in the hospital? What was _happening?!_ People could be in danger, he had to do something!

He forced himself to sit up, and for the first time since he'd been injured, focused directly on his overflowing core. "Goin' ghost," he whispered, and nothing happened.

Danny held up his left hand and punched himself in the chest, "I said, _going-"_ black sparks danced off his finger tips. "Oh no. No, hey, c'mon-" he whacked his hand with the other, and his right hand stuck to his left. "No- no, hey, no way-" he couldn't destroy the hospital room, he couldn't! He shouldn't even be able to! Why was the ghost shield letting him? Was it broken? If there was a ghost in here, then people could die! He didn't have time for this! "Please-" he couldn't pull his hands apart. The sparks were spreading now, and Danny's heart was pounding. It hurt to breathe, he bumped the table beside him, his phone fell onto his arm and-

A light that was far too bright practically punched him in the gut and Danny wasn't in his hospital room anymore.

.-.

Vlad had always used and, in the opinion of some, abused overshadowing. He didn't see what the issue was; if the nurses didn't want to be overshadowed, they should be wearing anti-ghost technology. Anyone who didn't have something like that already was an idiot and deserved everything they got.

He'd left the woman in a nearby closet, and as far as she would know she'd simply locked herself in there. And if anyone noticed anything suspicious, then she would be the one who had left a trail when prying into a patient's records.

Maybe, if he looked through everything they had on Daniel, he could find out exactly what had sparked the Guys in White's sudden interest in the apparent human.

Daniel's blood tests were odd, even for a half ghost. According to the reports, if the boy's blood and ectoplasmic contamination were not immediately separated, then his blood simply destroyed the ectoplasm. If anything like this could be explained, it should be the other way around and on a much smaller scale. But that was what caused Ecto Acne.

Was Daniel an anomaly? Was that why they had wanted his blood? If Daniel's human side was attempting to eliminate his ghost side, did that have anything to do with Skulker's knife? Every grasp at an answer led to more questions. Vlad was sick of it already.

An unfortunately familiar warmth curled in his core, and Vlad pulled back. The hospital had a ghost shield, and he had never been able to sense Daniel before. So how-

"Man, you have _never_ heard of doctor-patient confidentiality, have you?"

He recognized the echo as ghostly. Vlad switched to his ghost form automatically, an ectoblast prepared in his hand, and fired at the unfamiliar spector.

It never hit. One hand raised and yawning, the ghost held the ectoblast in place a foot away from him with no strain at all. He was tall, and hid his form under a hooded white cloak. "Rude." The attack disappeared when he closed his fist, and the scene around him dimmed. "But then again, you specialize in rude." He leaned in with a smirk, red eyes glowing under the hood and catching the edges of his face in their light. "Don'tcha, Plasmius? Better duck down V-man, this is about to get _weird."_

Vlad seethed. "How _dare_ you-" and part of the hospital exploded above him.

* * *

 _Heeeere he is, the biggest douche in the uniiiiiiverse!_

Okay, that's probably an overstatement, but my favourite thing to do is insult the local Terrible Man. He's one of my favourite characters to write. I love him so much.

So! Rewrite notes! These are just comparisons between the old version and various fun facts.

In the old version, when I originally showed up with this part, I got a review expressing disappointment at how I glossed over everyone's reaction to Danny's return. And honestly, that's entirely fair. I made an effort to fix it, while still keeping everything moving.

Danny's hospital room is mostly based off of the hospital room my dad stayed in for a couple weeks in November 2014 after a severe accident. (He's okay, though!) Considering that Danny also got severely injured, it seemed fitting. There's also a little bit of the one I stayed in for a day when I was twelve mixed in.

Throughout the old version, the local Terrible Man went through three or four periods where I redid his backstory entirely. That was one of the primary reasons I wanted to do a rewrite; while the older chapters in the earlier version did still _mostly_ reflect his characterization, they weren't the best.

The Guys in White didn't do nearly enough in the old version for the headcanons I have for them. They'll be doing more this time around, because I have plans that need to be given the proper amount of weight before we use them.

Danny is left-handed, just to be clear. Also, if you remember from the last chapter, February 17 is Danny's birthday! Happy birthday Danno, have fun with your new powers! :D

The next chapter is written, but it's really unlikely that I'll be able to do a speedy update again. Or maybe I will. I'm very easily bribed with affection.

Until next time, thoughts?


	3. Learning Curve

Aw, you guys are all sweethearts. Thanks so much for the compliments everyone, they mean the world to me!

Let's get back to it then! Onwards!

* * *

 **Part 3;**

Danny had found himself in a bright yellow hallway, now with damaged walls and scattered chairs, in what looked like he middle of the day. An illogical gut feeling placed him at around noon, as if it hadn't been nearly half past ten at night seconds before. He'd seen people, but fear kept him from saying anything. His phone had appeared with him, and it's _no signal_ almost seemed like a personal attack. The machinery in some of the rooms confirmed that he was still in the hospital, at least. Or _a_ hospital, maybe. This didn't feel like the Amity he knew.

It was almost impossible to just keep breathing. He tried counting his breaths, trying to keep himself calm, and just found himself panicking more. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

He sat on a bench, still in the hallway. He kept his hands in his sight, and refused to let them touch anything. _No more. No more black sparks. I can't break anything else._

He didn't notice when someone sat beside him. He had no idea anyone was there until they spoke. "Are you alright?"

Danny continued to stare at his hands. He'd ignored at least three concerned people already, if he didn't say anything then obviously- her hand was on his wrist.

"Darling, are you okay? Do you want me to find a nurse for you?"

Danny yanked his hand away, his breath catching when it didn't stick to her. _It's okay. I'm okay. I'm not going to destroy anything else._ "Sorry." _Don't talk to her, Fenton, you idiot!_

"It's fine sweetheart, don't worry about it." She smiled, and Danny took a second to look her over. She didn't look too much older than he was, maybe twenty-two at the most? Her skin was dark, and her hair was styled rather similar to Valerie's. She even had a headband. In fact, there were a lot of really weird similarities between this woman and the older Valerie he'd met that one time he would definitely _not_ be thinking about anymore. "What's your name?"

Danny swallowed. "Uh..." _Maybe she can help? Maybe she's future Valerie... when I'm not in the future. Or maybe she's just a random person that I should leave alone. I should leave her alone._ "...James." Not a lie. His middle name was James.

She narrowed her eyes for a fraction of a second where Danny honestly expected her to call him a liar and pull an ectogun from her pocket. But it passed, and she smiled kindly at him instead. "I'm Candice. It's a pleasure to meet you, James." She went to offer her hand, but quickly turned it into a wave. Danny found himself giving her a small smile in return.

"So, uh, what brings you here?" He relaxed a bit.

"My husband took our two-year-old snowboarding," Candice frowned for just a second before returning to her kind smile. "We were discussing it when the nurses recommended I take a walk."

"Yikes," Danny winced, "is your daughter okay?"

"Her leg is broken," Candice deflated a bit, but kept her smile. "But she's fine! What about you, honey? What's happening with you?"

"Uh," Danny cleared his throat, "I don't know, a lot? I'm supposed to be going home soon. I-" his breath came out in a frozen, curled puff. "Oh no, not this."

"Did your breath just fog up?" Candice asked, and Danny froze in place. _Oh no._ "It's not that cold, are you alright?" She placed the back of her hand on his forehead and automatically yanked it back, "You're freezing!"

His core was pulling him down the hall. "I- I uh, have to-" he ducked off the bench and scrambled to his feet- Danny was fast, but Candice was faster. Legs swept out from under him, she pinned his wrists behind his back and dropped him to his knees.

"You're not going anywhere like this." The friendly tone seemed incredibly condescending now. _What is she, Guys in White? Ugh, I'm such an idiot!_ "I'm going to let you up, and then we're going to go find a nurse _together._ Okay? I don't want to hurt you, James."

"Nobody ever means that," Danny muttered, and Candice slowly let him back up. His knees ached, and she kept a hand on his shoulder. Danny swallowed nervously, and tried to focus on anything but that. _Please don't get stuck. Please!_ _She's human, I don't want to hurt her!_

"I do," _Ugh,_ she talked way too pleasantly for someone who had practically tackled him. Candice turned him around, and started to lead Danny down the hall his ghost sense had pointed him. _Oh no. No, no-_

"Not that way," he tried to squirm away from her. Candice's hand wasn't stuck, but her hold was firm. "Somewhere else, please, I can't-" he could turn intangible and run. He could overshadow her. He could do _so many things_ to get out of this if he just _focused!_

"James," Candice placed her hands on both of Danny's shoulders and moved so that she could face him. She kept her back to where the ghost was, and Danny tried to keep an eye behind her. There were no more other people in these halls, just him, Candice, and the ghost. _I need to get her out of here._ "Why don't you want to go that way?"

A long green tendril shot around the corner and coiled around her throat.

Her hands broke away from Danny's shoulders as she flailed, trying in vain to free herself. The creature yanked her back, away from Danny's grasp, and out of reach. Her ankle hit the corner and Danny _knew_ that he'd heard her scream.

"Going ghost," he muttered, and focused on his core. In a second, the familiar cold would wash over him as his ghost side took over- in a second- _any second now-_

A crash echoed in the hall and Danny took off running instead.

It was an ectopus, floating there in the hallway with the still furiously flailing Candice in its grasp. Danny slipped his phone into a pocket and held out a hand, ectoblast almost ready- but his attack fizzled, and never formed. "Okay, that's bad."

Candice pried her mouth free. "James, what are you _doing?_ Run!" The ectopus threw her into the wall with a screech. Candice hit it hard, crashed down beside a chair, and didn't get back up.

Danny stared at her for a moment before sliding back a step. "Hey, ugly!" The ectopus turned to him now, "I get that you're mad the aquarium closed down, but that's not her fault! You want to make yourself useful?" The ectopus whipped a tendril at him, and Danny dropped down. It took a quick, tight roll before he was closer to Candice. "Well I'm craving some calamari!" He grabbed the chair and chucked it, smacking the ghost right in its god-awful face.

Candice stirred behind him, and Danny held out a hand. "Stay down," he whispered. He could be scared later, and worry about those sparks some other time. Right now, she didn't need Danny Fenton and his problems; she needed Danny Phantom.

She'd been nice to him. This really was the least he could do.

The ectopus screeched again, and Danny grabbed two of the tendrils. He planted his feet and tied them together, and yanked on the twisted pair. The ectopus crashed to the ground as Danny stomped on the next, dropping to one knee momentarily to add it to the knot. "What are you even doing out of the Ghost Zone?" He asked, and the ectopus hissed at him. "Nice. Dude, I almost died, I _so_ don't care." He leaned to the left to avoid another tendril and snatched it out of the air. "I could kick your butt in my sleep. You're like, week one."

A tendril wrapped around Danny's ankle and lifted him into the air. The ectopus roared and chucked him several feet down the hall. Danny bounced once and skid, coming to a painful stop as his phone dug into his side. His ribs stung, and he couldn't quite catch his breath.

The ectopus screeched again and Danny's arms shook as he forced himself up. There was a man peeking out of one of the doors, with shaggy brown hair and a long black coat.

Danny pointed a finger at him and put on his most stern superhero voice. "Get back in there."

The man slowly pulled the door closed.

Danny forced himself to his feet, his ankles stinging, and turned back to the ectopus. Candice was standing too, holding roughly half of the chair Danny had thrown before as a shield and looking like she was about to fall back down. _I don't think we can do this._ Candice wobbled, but blocked the three twisted tendrils with the chair. _I'm out of practice and she's human. We can't do this!_

Black sparks shot off his fingertips.

"Gah!" Danny reeled back, nearly grabbing his hand on reflex. His core churned, and Danny stared at his hand as the sparks shot off again.

He looked back up at the ectopus. _This did destroy a bridge... and mess up a hallway... oh, this plan is bad._ A tendril struck Candice across the face, and she stumbled back as blood dripped down her cheek. _Screw it._

"Candice!" Danny launched himself forwards, left hand outstretched and sparking. "Get down!"

Danny lept into the air and pressed his hands against the ectopus. In a second, the black sparks had darted up his arm. The ectopus tried to pull away, but the sparks crawling along its form held it in place.

Danny made eye contact with Candice, sitting on the floor as blood dripped down the side of her face. His vision tinted, and he used his free hand to give her a thumbs up.

Danny hit the ground hard, even with the ectopus for a cushion, and for a moment forgot how to breathe. Rocks dug into his skin, and it was still light out. He was outside, in some sort of alleyway, and there were jagged black lines along where he'd dug his fingers into the ectopus.

"Wait-" _alleyway, okay. Black sparks are definitely some sort of teleportation. I can deal with this. I can deal with exploding sparky teleporting powers._ The black lines in the ectopus didn't seem to be growing, and it curled in on itself. "Okay, you know what? Okay. I can deal with this." He struggled to his feet, "This is dealable. That's probably not a word." The ectopus hissed at him, but didn't fly away. "Yeah, yeah, you're not threatening after you've got my exploding spark power blasted through you." Danny nudged it with his foot. "What were you doing in a hospital, anyway?"

Danny felt a tendril wrap around his ankle and the ectopus chucked him into the air.

Arms flailing as his ghost form refused to activate, Danny squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on his core. _Flight, flight, come on, don't let me hit the ground- come on-!_

He didn't hit the ground so much as he was suddenly on it, gasping at the feeling of no longer falling. Danny opened one eye to confirm that yes, he was on the floor, had his phone in his hand instead of anything weird that he should worry about, and was also not anymore dead than usual. He was treated to the remains of his hospital room.

It was dark again, but one lone light was stubborn enough to keep flickering. The ghost shield flickered and dimmed, running out of energy as Danny watched. The machines and his hospital bed were mangled. His bathroom's wall had nearly folded in half, and the wall outside was simply gone. Pieces of the floor above him slid off as Danny stared out at the night, wind blowing his hair back and bringing with it the choking smells of dust and smoke.

"Oh my God." _I did this._ Danny's heart skipped a beat as he scrambled back, the remains of the floor creaking as he moved. "I did this. I- I- oh my God people could have _died._ " It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. Danny stared at his hand, his heart hammering, as he practically prayed that the sparks were gone for good. _I destroyed a hospital._

Something reached for him and Danny rolled out of the way, barely registering it as Vlad's ghost form. "Don't touch me." His voice was barely audible. He'd wasted too much breath hyperventilating.

Vlad watched him for a moment before holding out his hand. "It's not safe here, Little Badger."

"Don't call me that," Danny choked out, and shuffled away. He could've prevented this. He could have not blown up the building, why did he have to use those stupid sparks? He could've just washed them away and not destroyed a hospital, like any actual hero or remotely competent person would have-

He didn't manage to duck away again as Vlad grabbed his arm. Danny screamed as the older hybrid teleported him, and tried desperately to pull himself away before the sparks activated again.

The sparks didn't activate, though. And Danny was left shaking and exhausted as Vlad returned to human form and gently guided Danny out of the destroyed hospital.

.-.

His parents took him home.

Aside from the panic that Danny couldn't seem to explain any farther than 'I destroyed the hospital' that was too easily passed off as pointless self blame, he was physically fine. A bit bruised from the ectopus fight, but nobody asked about that. His advanced healing had taken care of most of the injuries, and Danny didn't want to worry anyone anymore.

He'd destroyed a hospital. He didn't deserve to.

At two in the morning of a Thursday, Danny approached his house for the first time in four months. A light dusting of snow covered the steps, and the light inside was on. Danny could see Jazz sitting there, watching from the living room's window. He didn't look at her. He pulled away when his mom tried to take his hand to help him up the front steps, and didn't bother to greet his sister.

He wasn't going to hurt anyone else. He wasn't going to hurt his family. No more buildings were going to be destroyed or anything like that. He wouldn't let it.

Danny opened the door to his room for the first time in months. It was impossibly clean, with half his posters removed from the wall and crisp new sheets on the bed. There was the faintest trace of a burnt citrus smell- of ectoplasm- and Danny kept his gaze on the window. There were new curtains. He could remember struggling to stay in the air, pulling his hands desperately away from his side to pull the window open and nearly hurling at the gross green-red-brown that had covered his gloves and smeared across the curtains and-

Danny's door was closed now, and hands pressed against his left side, he turned to see Jazz standing beside him. She pulled her hand away from Danny's door and draped a quilt around his shoulders. "Sleepover in the living room?" She dropped a pillow on his head.

Danny's voice got caught in his throat as he pried his hands off his side. Breathing hurt. But he had to keep the sparks away, and to do that, he had to stay calm. "Okay."

.-.

As dawn broke, Vlad left a duplicate in the Fenton's guestroom and flew off into the night. He entered the Ghost Zone through his own portal, and moved towards Pariah's Keep. It took longer than he would've liked to reach the building, but Fright Knight was waiting for him out front.

"Plasmius," the ghost didn't bow to him, or even greet him particularly formally. Vlad tried not to show annoyance at that. It wouldn't do well to offend the ghost before he'd asked his question. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"What do you know of a ghost with a white cloak?" Vlad asked, "Male, apparently caucasian, with red eyes. He came across as smug and annoying." No recognition flickered on Fright Knight's face. "He was able to pass through a ghost shield, stop one of my attacks by simply holding up a hand, and removed it from the air by forming a fist."

"There are many ghosts that could be," Fright Knight replied, "no part of that seems particularly unusual."

"He or someone associated with him targeted Daniel and blew up a hospital."

"I never took you as the type to care for something like that," Fright Knight said evenly. "Your description could apply to anyone with a flair for dramatics."

Vlad seethed. "You are _useless!"_

"I am simply stating facts," Fright Knight replied, and rested a hand on the hilt of his Soul Shredder. "I do not have knowledge of every ghost in the realm. You should look elsewhere."

Vlad kept one eye on the weapon. "If you hear anything, I expect you to inform me immediately."

"It is unlikely that I will." He ran a finger along the hilt. "But you will be the first to know if that changes."

It was practically nothing, but Vlad didn't have much of a choice. He nodded, did not thank the ghost for his time, and flew off.

Fright Knight watched him go, and an uncharacteristic smile split his features. "Sucker." He reached into his form and pulled out a simple blue stopwatch from around his neck.

At once, the illusion of the Fright Knight's form disappeared into twisting blue wisps, leaving just a tall man in a white cloak leaning on the Soul Shredder. The same ghost from the hospital stood there, swinging the stopwatch in a circle by its strap. With one fluid motion, he spun it into the air and caught it in his other hand. Black sparks curled around where it had landed, and crawled up his arm as he pulled the sword from the ground. He gave it an experimental swing as the sparks covered him, and the energy collapsed on itself. In a dark flash, he was gone.

.-.

Danny's first day back home started with him having gotten a grand total of two scattered hours of sleep. He stumbled into the kitchen at roughly seven in the morning, caught sight of the full pot of coffee, and decided that he didn't care enough to stop himself from drinking it straight from there.

It was a mistake.

Tongue burnt, Danny spat his bitter mouthful into the sink and beat a hand against his chest. "I regret so many things."

"I assume that what I just witnessed is near the top of the list?"

Danny officially hated the day after the second word. He glared over his shoulder at Vlad, dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants, who was sitting at the kitchen table. His stupid cat also had a chair, and was eating beside him. "Put on a suit," he grumbled, "you look like a hobo."

"And you look like a child who has never seen a hairbrush." Vlad held a piece of bacon out towards his cat, which she took automatically. "Aren't mornings just wonderful, dear boy?"

"At least it's my house," Danny replied, and considered walking out. But no. This was his house, he could _not_ show weakness! "And I didn't name my pet after someone I never even had a chance with in the first place."

"While I'm sure naming your old gerbil _Paulina_ instead of Radical would have been amusing, her full name is Madison." Vlad said evenly, "She was a rescue cat, and belongs to my sister."

"Yeah, literally nobody believes that. Your sister's probably just you in a dress." Vlad raised an eyebrow at that, "Also, I had Raddy when I was eleven, so knowing about her just makes you creepy." Danny crossed his arms, "Why are you here, Vlad? You have a house. Or did your portal blow it up again?"

Vlad did not react to the jab, and took a moment to eat some of his breakfast instead. "Daniel, I have a question for you."

 _I don't hate myself enough to put up with this._ "Sweet, I have actually never cared less in my life."

Vlad rose from his chair. "Daniel, one hybrid to another, did you sense a ghost in the hospital before it was destroyed?"

Danny stared at him. "Yes? It was an ectopus."

"I can assure you, it was not."

"Well, that sounds like a _you_ problem, because there definitely was and I wrestled it." Vlad raised an eyebrow, "I'm not joking! It was in the children's ward- it was also light out around there for some reason, maybe so the children could be seen if they ran- and I ran into this woman, Candice, whose daughter had just broken her leg snowboarding and she helped me fight it! I threw a chair at it, and-" Vlad placed a hand on his forehead. "Vlad, I'll smack you."

"I suppose someone would have said something if you were ill." He frowned as Danny shoved his hand away, "you didn't see a ghost in a white cloak, did you?"

"The ectopus was the only ghost there," Danny said, "I'd know if there was more than one. I taught myself how to do that, by the way, because you're crazy and if this is leading into another 'be my evil apprentice' speech I'm going to actually glue myself to my dad's side."

Vlad gave him a look over. "So your powers are functional, then?"

"Yes, Vlad, they are!" He actually couldn't use anything besides his ghost sense and the black sparks. "My ghost powers are fine. Why do you care?"

"I don't suppose you've been informed of the state of your blood, then?"

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Okay, somehow that's the creepiest thing you've ever said. I'm going to go back to hanging out with my sister and pretending you don't exist now." His attempt to walk past Vlad was stopped by the older hybrid grabbing his arm. Danny's heart skipped a beat as he tried to focus on anything but the sparks.

Vlad didn't seem to notice. "Daniel, if you see this white cloaked ghost, I need you to tell me immediately. If he convinced you of that scene, then he could be more dangerous than I thought."

Danny whirled around and elbowed Vlad's hand away. "Why? So you can use him? I know what I saw, _Vlad,_ and if you want to be a jerk about it that's your prob-"

"Daniel-"

"It's _Danny,_ you d-"

"Daniel, the nearest ski hill is nearly three hours away from here!" Vlad snapped.

Danny stared at him for a moment, searching for any trace of a lie, before he choked out, "So?"

"If the daughter of this woman you met had been injured snowboarding, she would have gone to a hospital closer to there. There is no reason for her to be in Amity Park!" Vlad grabbed his shoulders again, holding firm when Danny tried to squirm away. "You claim that it was bright outside and that you were there long enough to fight an ectopus, when only perhaps three minutes passed between the explosion and my appearance in your room. You are either lying or have been lied to, and would have broken character by now if it was the former."

There was another long silence between the two before Vlad pulled his hands back. "So tell me if you see him," Vlad said. "I doubt you will; he came across as rather secretive. I never saw his face. You should shower, dear boy. You don't smell particularly pleasant."

"Whatever," Danny's grumble came out strained. "Don't tell me what to do." He nearly ran out of the room.

Jazz was wrapped in blankets on the loveseat, curled up with her knees near her chest. She was too big for it, but sometime in the last few months Danny had finally grown taller than his older sister. On the table beside her, the both of them had left their phones. He probably needed to charge his. It had been almost dead before he fought the ectopus- which, screw Vlad, had definitely happened- and definitely needed to be charged. Danny grabbed his phone and turned it back on.

The fact it still had the battery power to do so wasn't nearly as shocking as the fact that somehow, his phone's clock had ended up an hour and thirteen minutes ahead.

"Technology, why do you hate me?" Danny grumbled, and pocketed his phone. He'd steal the charger from Jazz's room, and see if she had anything that could help calm him down.

Danny threw his blanket around his pajamas and wore it like a cloak as he started up the stairs.

He didn't notice the black sparks shooting off his fingers until they yanked him out of his sister's room and into a blizzard.

.-.

"Jazz said we have to give him time."

Sam knew she shouldn't be mad at Danny. He didn't deserve that, not when none of this had needed to happen. Still, she couldn't help but be annoyed at his outright refusal to acknowledge them. And she knew Tucker was, too. "He's had time."

"He almost died, Sam." His voice was half obscured by static provided by his skype call. Tucker needed a new mic. "He actually almost died. He's not going to be okay- you read what Jazz said about how he couldn't even look at his room."

Sam had. Jazz had let both of them know how Danny's impromptu first night home was going at roughly four in the morning, and mentioned the fact that her brother had taken to sleeping on the couch.

"We could help if he'd just talk to us!" Sam said, quickly bringing up the local news' website. It wasn't hard to find an article about the destruction of South Mercy Hospital. With that, the closest hospital to Amity Park was now two and a half hours away in the resort town of Raine. "He almost died again, Skulker was a mess, Danny apparently doesn't remember what happened to him, and nothing's going to get better if he doesn't talk to us! I know that he's mad, but I _can't_ lose him again."

"Sam, I get it. I miss him too." Tucker said, "Maybe he'd be willing to talk to Valerie?"

"Tucker, no offense, but I don't care how much better she's apparently been getting. She used to hunt Danny, talking to her won't help."

Tucker opened his mouth, eyes suddenly wide, and Sam heard a voice from behind her.

"I'd like to professionally disagree with that."

Tucker whispered her name as Sam turned back and stared at the ghost on her bed. He was over six feet tall and with a human-like pale skin tone, along with red eyes and a crooked grin. He looked like he was in his late twenties, though his skin was unreasonably flawless. A pure white cloak hung around his shoulders, clasped with a simple pin that left it hanging a bit crooked. He was broad shouldered and muscular, which he made no effort to cover with his sleeveless gray shirt. His pants were black and baggy, and he'd kicked off his white boots to reveal black socks with a pattern of cartoon ghosts. His shoulder length hair was held in a ponytail, and turned from white to black halfway down. A simple blue stopwatch hung around his neck, with the strap slightly twisted.

The ghost waited for Sam to finish looking him over before he raised his paper cup in greeting. She recognized the squareness of his jaw, and the awkwardness in his grin. He looked like he was hoping she wouldn't.

"Sup, Sammy?" The ghost who looked too much like Danny said, and took a drink.

* * *

There he is... my Terrible Man... with his terrible plans... I'd die for him.

Rewrite notes!

The people reading this on AO3 are lucky. They got a picture of my Terrible Man right in the text. You guys just get a link; **currently-lurking. tumblr com /post/ 126637563071/ myriamsaviniart-some- ffanart-about -a-danny** Also, I own his ghost socks. I love them. (Feel free to add the **.** between 'tumblr' and 'com' if you want a direct link. Otherwise remove the spaces and just google it. It's pretty easy to find.)

In the old version, I tried to be mysterious about him. I thought it'd be fun to draw out the whole 'is this guy Danny? Is he not? Oooooh who is he?' bit. However, almost everyone who was reading it at the time took one look at his hair and went like "Oh, future Danny?" So, yes. He looks a lot like Danny. I have plans this time, and admitting that fact upfront makes everything more fun. :D

Once again, Candice is our first time travel buddy! I have plans for her- a lot of which were used in the old version, so won't be that surprising for some of you- but she's great. Still, kudos to anyone who can figure out who she is before it's revealed! She's new and improved this time. I love her.

Danny has PTSD from his accident. I've done research, and talked to people who've been diagnosed with it. Most of Danny's experiences will be based off of their experiences. Still, if you think I'm doing something majorly wrong or offensive with this plot point, please don't hesitate to let me know.

That's all for now! It's my birthday tomorrow! ^^

Until next time, thoughts?


	4. Identify Yourself

Sometimes I get busy. Sometimes I get sad. Sometimes it's both, and my laptop also quits working, so I just suffer. These past few months have been a trip, y'all.

Although, this is roughly the same amount of time between updates for the old version, probably even less, so... close enough?

Onwards!

* * *

 **Part 4:**

Sam reached into her desk drawer and slowly wrapped her hand around a wristray. "Who are you?"

"You see, I could tell you," the ghost lowered his cup and tapped it twice. "But that would take the fun out of it."

"Why the hell do you look like Danny?!" Tucker shouted, and leaned in too close to his computer's camera.

"Tell me your name," Sam snapped the wristray on, " _now."_

"Eh, pass." He took another drink, "I will say this, though; I've done my research, and your plan with Valerie is _smart._ Do that." He pulled a gold coin from one of his pockets, "I'll actually pay you to do that smart plan."

"I don't need your money," Sam said, "why do you care what happens to Danny?"

"And why do you look like him?!" Tucker shouted again, more desperately this time.

The ghost shrugged, and turned the cup enough that Sam could see a _Starbucks_ logo. Above it were a few letters; _I.H._ with _P.S.L._ just below that. "Fair enough." He broke the coin in half, crumbled up the wrapper, and tossed the piece of chocolate into his mouth. "Let's just say I have an investment in his life."

Sam pulled her hand out of the drawer and aimed it at the ghost. "Danny, if this is you being an idiot, I swear to God you had better drop it now."

The ghost blinked and casually reached for his stopwatch. He clicked a button and looked down at it. "Neat, that's a new record." He looked back up at Sam, and the video chat with Tucker. "You guys really want to know who I am? Like, _really_ really?"

Sam started to charge up her wristray. "If you're not Danny and you don't tell me why you look like him right now-"

"You'll vaporize me, enter various death threats here, blah blah blah." He took another drink, "I have literally never given less of a shit, which is kind of impressive. If you were going to shoot me, Salmonella, you'd have fired already."

Sam aimed her wristray at the stupid stopwatch around his neck and fired.

Black spark appeared around it and absorbed her attack. In a dark flash, they shot out to cover the ghost and collapse inwards. A blast of wind hit her in the face and knocked Sam off her chair. Her computer hit the wall as Sam smashed into the ground. It took several seconds for her to gather her breath again, and look over the destruction that was once her room, and for her phone to start ringing. She had to pull it out from under the remains of her now shattered computer desk.

"Sam!" Tucker shouted as soon as she answered, "What happened?"

"I think he just exploded," Sam rubbed the shoulder she'd landed on, and could hear her parents running up the stairs. "I'm okay. Really, I'm fine, but this means we can't let Valerie near Danny. That ghost just blew up, we _can't_ trust him _-_ "

"I know," Tucker said, "I don't like him either. He looks too much like Danny."

One of Sam's windows had been destroyed in the blast. She shivered, and pulled herself off the floor. "Do you think that ghost had anything to do with what happened to him?"

"Honestly?" Tucker replied, "Yeah. If he was on our side, he wouldn't have been so weird."

"Do you think Frostbite would know anything about him?"

"Do you think Frostbite would talk to us without Danny there?"

There was a pounding on her door. "Sam?" Her mother called, "Sammykins, are you okay?"

"I have to go," Sam said, "Tucker, it's worth a shot. It's what Danny would do if it was us."

"Yeah," Tucker said softly, "I get that." Right before she hung up, Tucker added, "Did he call you _Salmonella?_ "

.-.

Unfortunately, ending up in a blizzard with only his pajamas and a blanket to protect him didn't even grace the top five of the worst things that had ever happened to Danny.

Oh, it was up there- number eight or nine, probably, if he really wanted to rank all the horrible things that had happened to him in the past sixteen years- but still, Danny had kind of grown to expect the horrible stuff his life threw at him. This wouldn't have even made it into the top ten if he'd been wearing shoes, or if his phone had done anything but die the second it realized that cold temperatures were a thing.

Danny threw the blanket over his head and stumbled half-blind towards a distant light. He didn't really think much; there wasn't much to focus on other than the cold that felt like it was actively trying to murder him, or the ever-present terror that he had destroyed his sister's room and injured his family.

The lights turned out to be a car that sped by him, and Danny suddenly realized he was standing in the middle of a snow-covered road. He stuck a thumb out of the blanket as another light appeared, and wondered if hitchhiking worked outside of movies. The cold had started to murder his thumb as the light grew more intense, and Danny wondered how the blanket affected the chances of this working. He adjusted it, just allowing his face to poke out.

A car slid to a stop three feet from him.

"Huh." Danny curled back up in the blanket as the door opened, "I didn't think that'd work."

A figure in a tan coat stepped out and shined a light in his face. Danny flinched back, squinted, and tried to seem unthreatening. Also, like he wasn't about to freeze to death.

"James?"

 _Oh, you can't be serious._ "Candice?" He squinted, and she stared him down. "Oh. Huh. This is happening now. Hi."

 _There's no way this is actually happening to me._

Suddenly, Vlad's theory held a lot more weight.

.-.

Vlad flew silently through Jack and Maddie's portal and reformed with his duplicate. His cat took that chance to announce her delight with his return, and then wail like his duplicate hadn't actually fed her.

"My dear, I can see your plate right there," Vlad said as he scooped her up in his arms, and ignored how she automatically started to bat at his hair. As his cat purred, Vlad went over the information his duplicate had gained from Daniel. If this ghost could do such elaborate illusions, and Fright Knight had been acting strange... then... "Fudge Nuggets!"

"Can you be quiet?" Jasmine called from the other room, weakly and still half asleep.

"Of course, I apologize." Any semblance of politeness in Vlad's voice was only possible by his twenty years in business. He duplicated again- there was no time to get dressed, or drive, or any of that human nonsense- and flew invisibly out of the house in seconds. He needed his library. He needed his books on the Ghost Zone. Every second he wasted, the ghost seemed to become more dangerous. And if Fright Knight was uncomfortable, then one terrifying conclusion stood out above the rest.

This white-cloaked ghost had some relation to Pariah Dark.

.-.

Danny sat in the passenger side of Candice's car, heat cranked, and wrapped in a new blanket from her backseat. He held his phone in front of the heater, waiting to see if that'd do anything to revive it. Candice sat in the driver's seat, hands clasped on the wheel and staring straight ahead as she drove through the storm.

His phone came back to life and vibrated intensely in his hand, and Danny hurriedly went to bring up his home phone number. It took him a moment to realize that it didn't matter; his phone had no signal, anyways.

The battery ran out roughly ten seconds later.

"I hate technology," Danny said, and dropped his phone in his lap. "Hey, uh, Candice? Thanks for the ride, um, I'd be frozen to the road if it wasn't for you. I'm pretty impressed that I still have feet and stuff right now. But where are we g-"

"Are you an alien?" Candice asked.

Danny stared at her. "What?"

"Are you an alien?" She asked again, slower this time. "I have a right to know if my life is turning into some science-fiction bullshit. So, are you?"

"Uh, no?" The Ghost Zone wasn't really another planet. Another world, sure, but not planet. It wasn't cool enough for that. "No, I'm pretty human."

"Really?" Candice raised her eyebrows and motioned vaguely towards his cellphone. "Then what's that communicator thing for?"

"...It's an iPhone." He held it up, "It's not even one of the newer ones. I got it like, last year."

"It's some Star Trek shit, that's what it is." Candice muttered.

Danny stared at her. "Do you actually not know what an iPhone is? They came out when I was like, ten. Have you been living under a rock?"

"Do you think you're still on your home planet or something?"

"Still not an alien."

"Well, you're some sort of cryptid." She gripped the wheel tighter, "Some sort of fey creature, or something. You can't be human. Humans don't explode into black sparks while fighting flying squids." Danny opened his mouth to stop her, but Candice kept going. "God, was _that_ an alien too? Are you an alien, fighting other aliens? Is James even really your real name?!"

Danny pulled back. _Okay, breathe Fenton - damage control. You need to do damage control._ "Uh, it's my middle name." _Nailed it._

"That makes _none_ of this less terrifying." Candice replied, "If you're not an alien, not fey, then what are you? Mothman?"

"No," Danny held up his hands, "okay? No to all of those. I'm not a threat."

"Prove it."

Danny stared at her. "I'm like sixteen, how the hell am I supposed to do that?! Look, I give you my word that I'm not going to hurt you and am a human." _Currently._ "If it helps, I tried to tell my arch nemesis about you this morning and he called me a liar."

"You have an arch nemesis?"

"Yeah, his name's Vlad. Really weird, billionaire or something, but he thinks this is a hallucination-"

Candice reached over and put her hand in front of his face. "Okay, first of all, _what the heck._ Second, why do you have an arch nemesis when you're sixteen?! Third, I swear to God, if you're talking about the billionaire _Vlad Masters_ , then you're going to need to explain whatever Superman shit you have going on here." Danny swallowed nervously, "You know, Superman's an alien."

"I'm not an alien!" Danny snapped, and felt the world get darker around him. "I'm a ghost, happy?!"

Candice turned slowly to face him and started to pull her car to the side of the road.

"What are you doing?"

"I can handle science-fiction, but my life is _not_ turning into a horror movie."

Danny held up his hands. "No, no, it's okay! I'm not, like, an evil ghost or anything! I'm like, ghost Superman! Or Spiderman. Spiderman might work better, actually. Except Vlad kind of is Lex Luthor, I don't know, I'm not much of a superhero movie person- oh, I should _not_ be telling you this. I'm Casper. Let's stick with Casper."

"I don't think Casper ever fought a squid." Candice stopped staring at him at went back to watching the road. "There's no good places to pull over here."

"Please don't kick me out," Danny said quickly, "I might actually die. I don't know how any of this works and I'd really rather not freeze to death. I've already almost done that once in my life. I'm really not a fan."

He'd started speaking faster with every word. Candice gave him a rather judgemental look from the corner of her eye. "You can't be real."

Danny shrugged. "I could say the same thing about you." She looked like she was about to reply to that, but Danny didn't give her the chance. "You were so nice at the hospital, why are you freaking out now?"

"Oh, I'm sure there's plenty of reasons," Candice said, and gave the most uncomfortable nervous laugh Danny had ever heard. "Let's examine some of them; there was a giant flying green squid that broke my ankle, but despite that nobody knows who you are and any security cameras that could have seen you were mysteriously offline, you turned into black sparks and _exploded,_ right after this happened a bunch of people in white suits just casually showed up on my front porch and tried to grill me for information about you, and despite that my own _husband_ doesn't even believe you're real! So _excuse me_ if I'm a bit wound up when you show up in the middle of the road during a blizzard three months later!"

Danny, who'd been uncomfortably staring at her and about to comment on the fact that apparently the _Guys in White_ were looking into him, suddenly had something much more confusing to focus on. "Three months? It's been like, eight hours since I fought the ectopus."

"It's called an _ectopus?_ "

"That's what you're focusing on?!" Danny snapped, and threw up his hands. "Why would you say it's been three months?"

"Because it has?" Candice replied, "Don't get short with me! Why would I lie about that?"

"Because it doesn't make sense!" _Breathe. Okay, Fenton, don't get worked up like this. Candice will be even more pissed at you if you blow up her car._ "One of us has to be wrong, there's no way-"

"You're the one with the weird communicator thing. Again, that kind of stuff belongs in Star Trek and not in my life." Candice pointed out, "if you are a ghost- and I'm still going for alien, by the way- shouldn't you have stuff from the past instead of weird futuristic technology?"

Something clicked into place in the back of Danny's mind as he sat up a little straighter. _No way._ He looked down at his phone, around the inside of the car, then slowly back up at Candice. "Uh... weird question. What year is it?"

Candice was silent for a few long moments. "2000. February 13, 2000."

Danny swallowed. "O-oh." He held up his phone with his shaking left hand. "This was made in 2012." It slipped from his hand and back into his lap as Danny ran both his hands through his hair. "This can't be happening. There's so many reasons why this has to be a trick or something. None of this makes any sense! Why would I have exploding-teleporting _-time travel_ powers?!"

"Oh, so this is new for you?" Candice asked, a bit of a nervous laugh seeping into her words. "How long have you been traveling through time, Mr. Ghost?"

"I- I don't know? This is the second- maybe third- time that it's happened." Danny tried to control his breathing. It wasn't working. "I don't know about the first one. I just- I got hurt, everything's a blur, and the first thing I really remember is the- the fact that I just _knew_ that I had just destroyed half a bridge." He curled forwards, gripping the side of his head. "I can't be a _time traveler,_ Clockwork would have shown up by now if I was! He's the Master of Time, he should be doing something about this!"

Candice, obviously uncomfortable, reached over to give him a few flat-handed pats on the shoulder through the blanket. "I don't know who that is."

"That's nice, because I have no idea what's going on!" Danny forced out a laugh, which did nothing to calm him down. "I can't be a time traveler. There's no way- I'm still like, half human! _Vlad_ can't time travel- wait, can Vlad time travel? Holy shit, that'd be _bad._ Okay, Fenton, easy- if he was a time traveler, he'd be married to your mom and you wouldn't exist! And since you do, probably, exist, then Vlad is definitely not a time traveler."

"I feel like I shouldn't be listening to this," Candice said. "But on another note, James? Or whatever your name is?"

"Danny."

"Huh. Okay. I'll remember that, I guess. Apparently my life is weird enough that I should. Danny, remember the men in white suits I mentioned?" Her car had started to slow down as Danny's heart skipped several beats. "Are they friends of yours?"

Danny shot back up and stared out the front window. There were four cars ahead of them, lined up for a well lit roadblock, manned by a swarm of people dressed entirely in white- and one figure, standing off to the side, dressed in a long, black coat.

"Oh no," Danny whispered, "they blend."

"They're going to find you if you stay," Candice said softly, and when Danny looked back at her, she was shoving her boots and coat into his arms.

Danny looked down at them, then back up at her. "Candice-"

"If you run now, you can probably get away before they see you." She reached over and unlocked his door. "I only met them once, and they're terrifying. I'm not handing you over to them."

Danny stared at her. "I thought you were scared of me. What happened to not wanting your life to become a horror film?"

"Oh, you don't know?" She smiled, "Time travel and shady government agencies are quintessential science fiction plots." She gave him a shove, "Go on, go! Before they see you!"

And Danny did.

Wrapped up in borrowed clothes, he ducked out the door and rolled into the blizzard. He ran until the lights from the road were barely a dot behind him.

He ran until the fear that Candice was going to get in trouble for helping him caused sparks to shoot from his hands.

Danny landed on his back in a familiar pink room. His sister's bedroom wasn't in pieces. The walls were still upright, and the windows hadn't been smashed. The posters had been knocked off the wall, her bed was a mess, her desk chair was broken, and there was a little circle of clean floor around where he had landed.

Danny threw Candice's coat and boots into the closet before rooting around her desk for a phone charger. He sat still in his sister's room, waiting for his phone to charge enough that he could turn it on.

His phone's clock, once only an hour and thirteen minutes ahead, was now an additional fifty.

The phone slid from Danny's hands as he took a shaking breath in. This wasn't an illusion. This wasn't a trick. This was actually happening.

 _I'm a time traveler._

 _Oh my god, I'm a time traveler._

Danny grabbed his phone again as he heard his parents start to move in their room, and reset it back to the proper time. He shoved the phone into his still-damp pajama pants, grabbed the charger, and rushed into the bathroom before anyone could pin the mess in Jazz's room on him.

 _I need to tell Clockwork about this._

* * *

Look at that good boy, making plans to deal with his problems. What a good boy.

Rewrite notes!

I've had a chance to write a lot of an OC focused fic over the past year and a half with a friend of mine, and the Terrible Man has made himself a key part of it. It's been a great character study for him, and helped me refine a lot of his finer points. One of my favourite things that's come from this is his constant, terrible nicknames. Salmonella's one of his better ones.

Using actual dates provides weird challenges. I didn't bother to research a lot of things last time around, which probably showed... especially with the forced Doctor Who jokes. _Yikes._ This time I've had to learn a lot about touch-screen phones and the original run of Star Trek. But the best thing I've had to research is the timeframe that pumpkin spice lattes are out for.

So much of Candice's characterization last time around was basically just 'nice mother' and barely went any deeper than that. While that worked in the beginning, it started to cause problems as the story went on. This time, I'm giving her the developed personality she deserves. It'll also make later events a lot more fun.

Last time, I gave Danny a lot of poor reasons for not going straight to Clockwork for time travel advice. Like a lot of the things in that version, they weren't as bad as they could've been, but didn't do much for the story as a whole other than making the cast run in pointless circles. So, the situation with him will be getting addressed a lot sooner this time around!

That's all for now! We'll see when the next chapter comes out; it's already written and good to go, but then again, so was this one. I'm functional, I swear.

So! Thoughts?


	5. In For a Penny

Something has come up literally every time I've tried to post this chapter. It's ridiculous. Currently I'm sitting in the dark in my basement while my nephew sleeps in the room beside me. Let's hope this works!

Onwards!

* * *

 **Part 5:**

As he sat on the bathroom floor with the shower running behind him, Danny made a list of everything he knew about his new power.

 _1) the black sparks can be triggered by getting emotional._

 _2) sometimes they blow everything up, sometimes they don't. (Might relate to when I used them last?)_

 _3) soaking the sparks in cold water makes them go away for a bit._

 _4) they take me to the past for around an hour._

 _5) I think the first time I used them was when I destroyed the bridge, but I can't remember what happened._

 _6) both times I can remember, I met Candice._

It wasn't a very good list. Maybe Clockwork could explain it better. Danny stuck his head in the water just long enough so that he could pretend to have showered before turning off the water and heading for the hall.

Someone had left him a change of clothes right outside the door. As Danny looked up from them, he saw his mom duck back around a corner like she hadn't been watching the door. Swallowing uncomfortably, Danny stepped back into the bathroom to change.

He made his way downstairs a minute later, intending to head straight for the lab only to be stopped by the sight of every other person in his house. The four humans and a cat were sitting at the table loaded with bacon and eggs, and waiting for him.

Danny pointed at Vlad. "You still look like a hobo." The cat meowed, probably in agreement.

Vlad didn't bother to acknowledge that, but Maddie took a shaking breath in. As Danny turned to his mom, she was already on her feet and pulling him into a hug. After a stunned second, the rest of his family joined her.

"Uh, Mom?" Danny choked out, awkwardly patting her arm with what little movement he could manage with his entire family clinging to him, "Are you okay?"

"I'm just so glad you're home," his mom whispered as she squeezed him tighter, and Danny's heart sank into his gut.

There was no way he'd be getting into the Ghost Zone today.

.-.

Vlad was getting awfully tired of finding nothing.

When Daniel had first disappeared, he'd searched the Ghost Zone and found nothing. When he'd tried to investigate what had happened to Skulker, or look into the Guys in White's 'primary objective' he had uncovered _more_ nothing. Now, trying to find this white-cloaked ghost with the power of illusion and some link to Pariah Dark, he had uncovered absolutely nothing of use.

Vlad slammed a book closed and turned to the artifacts he kept on display in his library; the Crown of Fire and the Skeleton Key.

There was one solid way to know if this ghost had any relation to Pariah. If he wore the crown himself, perhaps he could survive long enough to ask. Or maybe he could trade them for information at the Far Frozen, or with the Master of Time. Although, he doubted either of those options would be willing to grant him an audience.

Vlad scowled at his library, and let his consciousness transfer back to his duplicate. There was no point in continuing this if he was going to find nothing. Perhaps he'd go to the Ghost Zone later, and try to barter with some of the older spectors for information again.

Roughly two minutes after he left, a white-cloaked ghost with two-toned hair appeared, rubbed his hands together with a grin, and proceeded to move everything he could get his hands on three inches to the left.

.-.

Jazz had to pull herself away from the sudden family movie marathon - Danny had picked Star Trek, which was a bit odd considering that none of them knew he had any interest in those movies - to answer her phone. As soon as she heard the question posed by the voice on the other end, she already knew what her reply would be. "No."

"Okay," Tucker said, "but this ghost is dangerous. He blew up Sam's room and he looked like Danny!"

"If you come into my house and expose my traumatized little brother to something he is in no way ready for, I will change my phone number." She kept her voice quiet, "And if he is targeting Danny, there's no way he'll be able to get in here. My parents have been working on their shields. He'll be fine. And I can't just let you in here to use the Specter Speeder! Someone has to be the responsible adult in this!"

"That ghost said he had an _investment_ in Danny's life!" Tucker nearly shouted, and Jazz turned her volume down. "He was gone for three and a half months, do you _want_ something like that to happen again?"

"Of course I don't - "

"Then let us take the Specter Speeder. Danny doesn't even have to know we were there!"

"That's part of the problem!" Jazz cut in, her voice just about a hiss. "Do you realize how hurt he'll be if he learns that you did this? He's so fragile right now, if he learns that you found a ghost who apparently looked like him and declared him the enemy after one meeting he's going to panic! Just give him time."

"We've _been_ giving him - "

She didn't want to argue, but she knew it wouldn't be healthy for her brother's once best friend to keep it all in. So she let him rant, and Jazz made a mental note to ask her dad to hook the lab's security cameras to her phone.

.-.

While the others stressed over Danny's first day home, used their day off school to plot a trip to the Ghost Zone, or whatever nonsense they took part in, Valerie did not have the luxury of a break.

She had a morning shift in the deli in Elmer's Pharmacy, and an evening shift at the Nasty Burger. For the hour and a half between them, she was ghost hunting.

Her current target - and the one that she'd unfortunately spent the better part of forty minutes on - was a duplicating animal ghost that constantly shifted between a relatively normal rabbit and an eight-foot-tall fox that breathed fire. She'd wasted the first twenty minutes tracking duplicates before realizing this wouldn't end unless she went after the original, which had taken an additional ten minutes to track it. When she finally found its location, it was joined by a second, separate ectosignature.

Valerie approached the scene cautiously. She abandoned her hoverboard and crept through the frozen bushes of Amity's central park on foot, eyes focused on the tracker. She pushed a branch down as she approached, and frowned at the sight ahead of her.

The other ghost could have passed as a human if he really wanted to, or if there was a convention nearby. Those always complicated ghost hunting. The only reason Valerie was sure that he wasn't human came from her tracker, which was desperately trying to provide information from his ectosignature. He had white hair that turned black halfway down, a cloak, and was filming himself as he laid on the ground, one hand outstretched, as he tried to coax the ghost rabbit over.

Maybe some idiot ghost had just possessed a loser. _Or maybe he's a hybrid._ Either way, this was first humanoid ghost she'd seen in _months_ that wasn't Plasmius.

"Hey Fluffy," he made a smooching sound and started to inch towards the ghost. "Love me. Love me." The rabbit hopped towards him, "Yeees. Hello small green fluffy friend, how are you? You're very cute. You should love me." He made the smooching sound again.

Valerie, drowning in secondhand embarrassment from whatever was happening in front of her, set her weapon to _net_ and launched it at them both.

The man screamed while the rabbit tried - and failed - to switch to it's fox form. Valerie stepped out from the brush, twirled her weapon as she switched it back to ectoblasts, and pointed it at the man as she took several purposeful steps forwards. "Talk."

He swallowed before attempting to phase out of the net as well. He failed, of course. "I-I mean, I'm good at that. Very good at talking. Do you have a topic? Because if not I can just ramble. You're Valerie, right? I've looked into - I mean I have no idea who you are! None. Nope. Nadda."

"Shut up." Why would a ghost look into _her?_ That was just creepy. Never mind the fact that he knew her name. "Who are you? Are you half human?"

"Uh, no? No, I'm super dead. People were sad about it and everything. Still are. Kinda annoying. I go anywhere and people are all 'oh, it's you, we love you!' and I'm all 'please stop hugging me, I didn't agree to take part in this physical contact.'" He frowned, "Can you either stop pointing the gun at me or let me out of the net? This is kind of the nightmare scenario already without extra things that can murder me."

Valerie did not lower her gun. "Why did you look into me?"

"Uh, I didn't want to end up in a net with a wild animal while you threatened to murder me? Kind of obvious. Also kind of bombed that one. Really starting to seem like my main skill is messing things up. Statistically, I guess it had to be something."

Valerie narrowed her eyes. There was something familiar about this ghost's face. He refused to look her in the eye, and he sounded so uncomfortable with every word he forced out. _If he was a hybrid, there's no way he'd tell me._ "What's your name?"

He was silent for a few long seconds. "Clockwork?"

"If you're lying, I will shoot you."

"Please don't!" He attempted to hold up his hands, and barely got his right one past his waist. "That was a lie because I panicked, but this isn't, so if you could _not_ murder me that'd be super. I'm Infinite. Infinite Hour if you're mad at me. Which people are a lot, I think. But they say it really stiffly and hold out their hands which probably means something else. I don't know how people work."

Valerie stared. That didn't fit in with the pattern Vlad, Dani, and Danny all had for their ghost forms at all. Maybe he was a hybrid with tact, if those even existed. He certainly wasn't a normal ghost. "Who the hell names their kid Infinite?"

"Who the hell names their kid _Box Ghost?_ Ghost names are dumb, just go with it." He was having a bit more success moving his hands now. "Also my sister named me, if you want to be technical. So blame her. But not to her face. She has an axe. Halbird? It's good for chopping down people and trees. She also has like, ten different spiders that she calls her babies, so uh, she's a badass."

 _Sister? Damn, he might actually be a hybrid. I can't hurt him if he's human; he hasn't done anything._ Valerie pulled adjusted her weapon and recalled the net, not wasting any time before capturing the rabbit as well. Infinite Hour was left sitting among the frost, looking a bit lost.

"Gonna be honest, I thought you were just going to murder me." He smiled, "Thanks for not doing that. Really appreciate it. My sisters will also, uh, appreciate not having to save my ass again. Which is great for everyone. Less yelling and shit."

"Whatever," Valerie said, and set her tracker to follow his ectosignature. "Go home."

He gave her a sheepish thumbs up, held his phone closer to his chest, and for barely a second black energy seemed to crawl down his fingers. A blast of wind forced Valerie to close her eyes, and he was gone.

And then she turned around and he was right behind her again.

Valerie blinked, and glanced at her tracker. Either nearly all of the values of his ectosignature had just moved themselves by the slightest fraction, or this was an entirely different ghost. But Infinite hadn't changed at all! Well, his posture was straighter, and he'd hung a stopwatch around his neck, but there was nothing major enough to warrant his ectosignature shifting. His form hadn't suffered any major damages, and he didn't appear any more threatening. His ectosignature was just _different._

That wasn't how ghosts were supposed to work. They liked things to be constant, they _rejected_ change, and the only thing on their ectosignatures that ever altered was the value which showed how strong they were. _This_ ghost had rewritten his entirely, with values that were only slightly off from what they had been a moment ago.

Valerie raised her gun, and Infinite raised an eyebrow. He also raised a Starbucks cup to her in greeting. "Sup?" He reached out a hand and nudged the barrel of her gun away from his chest. "Kudos for not immediately murdering my ass, I know that was hard for you. Hey, throwback to that other time you didn't murder me, which unless I royally fucked up was super recent. Those were some great memories we made together. Me, in a net, and you, not murdering me. Remember 'em like they were yesterday. Which they might've been for you, I didn't know this would be happening when I did that. Making this up as I go along now." He reached into his pocket and just kept rambling. Valerie stood there, a bit too shocked to do much else. This was far too human for her tastes.

"Do you ever shut up?" She asked, and Infinite stopped mid-word to stare at her.

"...Listen, we all have our nervous tics, and you have a gun." He pulled a twenty dollar bill from his pocket and held it out to her. "Here. Money. Have it, lower the gun, and join me on my wonderful plan to make sure your good buddy Danny Fenton doesn't get himself killed."

Several questions broke into a brawl, fighting for Valerie's full focus. _Why would a full-ghost have money? Why does he know Danny?_ "I'm listening," Valerie said instead, and lowered her weapon.

Infinite stared at her. "Huh. Okay. Bribery. Real money works. Makin' a mental note of that cool fact." He drank the rest of whatever was in his cup in one gulp and clapped his hands together, smashing the paper cup between them. "Alrighty! Valerie, yes? Go spend time with him. Talk about shit that isn't me, talk about past stuff in your wonderful shit town, and I'll come bother you later to hear about how that went! Got it? Yes? Good talk!" He pointed a finger gun her way and disappeared in another rush of black sparks.

Valerie was left standing in the park, a twenty dollar bill floating down in front of her, and her weapon aimed at the ground.

 _Danny, what the absolute hell have you gotten yourself into?_

.-.

 _What the absolute hell have I gotten myself into?_

Danny had never described his life as normal; he was a C student, not an idiot. But sometimes, such as when being stabbed gave him the ability to travel through time, things got a bit weird even by his standards. Although, sitting on the bathroom floor looking up ' _how to be a time traveler'_ on his phone had probably crossed a line beyond that. What would the next level up from 'weird for a half ghost' be?

Whatever it was, it was pointless. Danny had found _nothing_ he could use.

"Internet, you're supposed to be more helpful than this." He grumbled, and dropped his phone in his lap. He glanced over his shoulder at the shower and wondered how much longer pretending to clean himself up just to get some alone time would work. Jazz was bound to catch on if he kept trying this, and judging by how his family had practically attached themselves to his side all day they would be getting _worried_ soon.

With a groan, Danny ran his hands through his hair. He needed some sort of plan or distraction so that he could get into the Ghost Zone. And then he needed to get _through_ the Ghost Zone without any powers, and since Clockwork's tower was in the literal middle of nowhere, he'd probably have to take the Spector Speeder. That would be another thing he'd have to explain. And he had to go alone, because he had exploding, teleporting, time travel powers that had destroyed a bridge and a hospital. He couldn't ask Jazz, she was pure human. If something went wrong he could severely injure her. His parents didn't know enough to be an option, Vlad was just evil, and Sam and Tucker-

Danny plunged his hands back into the shower, focusing on the water pounding them as he tried desperately to push the thoughts from his mind. _No thinking. No thinking. Think about anything else. Think about dogs, or the fact that you destroyed- no thinking. No thinking! No! They left- no! No thinking!_

 _It was their plan that almost got you killed. They abandoned you._

His phone vibrated intensely in his lab and Danny jolted. His breath came out in shallow, panicked gasps as he fumbled and forgot for just a moment how to move his arms. His hands didn't really feel like his own as he struggled to check the text.

 _Val: Hey. Call me?_

A droplet of water rolled down his nail and onto her name. Danny found himself nodding, and struggled to focus as he just pressed call.

She answered after the first ring. Valerie normally waited until the third. "Hey."

"Hi." Danny's voice was raw. He didn't know why.

"Did you get my gift?"

Danny shrugged, and then remembered that this was a phone call. "Yeah."

"...Danny, are you okay?"

"'Mm fine," he mumbled. Drops from his hand had started to roll past his phone and onto his face. "How're you?"

Valerie was silent for a second. "Can I come over?"

"Uh," Danny squinted at the walls, and wondered why his family didn't have a bathroom clock. "I don't know."

"I can be there by eight. I just got off work."

It seemed later than that. "Okay."

"Are you hurt?"

"No," it was hard to focus on her words. Danny felt a bit like he was underwater. For all he knew, maybe he was, and it was another thing that came with the time travel powers. "'Mm showering."

"You're mumbling a lot." Valerie didn't give him a chance to reply. "I'll be there soon."

The call ended, and Danny shoved his hands back into the shower until things started to feel real again.

Half an hour passed before he realized he'd thrown his phone into the tub.

.-.

Valerie abandoned her suit beside Fenton Works, started to step out into the street, and instead froze to stare at Sam and Tucker, who were equally frozen in the middle of prying one of the basement's windows open.

Valerie stared at them. They stared at her.

"What are you doing here?" Sam asked.

"Not breaking and entering," Valerie said, and continued towards the front door. Sam and Tucker chose to continue prying open the window instead of following her, and she knocked on the front door.

Danny's Mom opened it up, and purely on reflex, Valerie found herself switching to her customer service voice. "Hi, Mrs. Fenton. I was on the phone with Danny about half an hour ago, and he said I could come over. Is he still in the shower?"

Mrs. Fenton opened her mouth like she was about to say something rather unpleasant, but stopped herself. "Yes, he is. I don't believe now's a good time."

"I'll only be a few minutes," Valerie promised. "I just need to check on him. When I called, he sounded like he was on the edge of some kind of panic attack." There was a crash in the alleyway. Valerie wondered how Sam and Tucker's burglary attempt was going.

"Well, if it's only for a few minutes..." Another crash. _Badly, I guess._ "What is going on over there?" She stepped out the front door, and Valerie slipped inside. She caught sight of the rest of Danny's family - and Mayor Masters, _ugh_ \- sitting in front of the TV. There was a paused movie, something sci-fi, but Valerie didn't pay it any mind. Despite her parents' best efforts, science fiction had never really been her favourite genre. Besides, she had Danny to worry about.

Valerie made her way upstairs without having to deal with any more awkward conversations, and celebrated her small victory by taking a second to tidy up some of her flyaway hairs before knocking on the bathroom door. She could still hear the water running on the other side. "Danny? I'm here."

After a second, the water stopped. Valerie took that as a good sign. She knocked again.

"I'm opening the door now, okay?"

She opened the door a crack, and heard Danny mumble, "Neato."

Valerie opened the door a bit more, and while giving Danny plenty of time to make sure he was decent, casually stepped into the bathroom. Danny, sitting on the ground, was a mess.

His hair was sticking up at five different weird angles, with only half of it even appearing damp. He had horrible bags under his eyes, he was still far too thin and bony to be healthy. The top half of his shirt was soaked, and as he held his phone in front of him, several drops of water slid out from the case.

"You're supposed to put your phone in rice if it gets soaked," Valerie said, because she didn't really know what else there was to say.

"There's no rice in the bathroom," Danny said, half-mumbling still. He dropped his phone into his lap and bent forwards, head in his hands. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"That's okay. Most people don't." Valerie bit her tongue. ' _Most people don't.' Great, do I have anything less helpful I could say then that?_ "So... have you seen any good movies?"

Danny, still bent forwards, shrugged. "We were watching Star Trek before."

"That's nice. My parents liked that series." God, this was arguably the most awkward conversation Valerie had ever had. Screw Infinite, if he didn't want to be mentioned by name then he should've gone to someone who cared what stupid ghosts with bullshit changing ectosignatures wanted. "So, does the name Clockwork mean anything to you?"

That got a reaction out of Danny. He sat bolt upright, staring at her for a second as he struggled to form words. Danny was on his feet, standing awkwardly alongside Valerie in the bathroom, before he even managed to make a sound. And once that happened, he barely paused to breathe. "You saw Clockwork? No, wait, you didn't fight Clockwork, did you? Please tell me you didn't fight Clockwork, he could have wasted you - wait, did you beat Clockwork? Oh no, Val, you have to release him - _please_ \- I need to talk to him so could you please - "

Valerie placed her hands on his shoulders. "Danny, calm down! Breathe, and talk slower."

Something about the word 'breathe' seemed to set Danny off, because he pulled back and immediately started washing his hands.

Valerie swallowed. She wasn't really a 'comforting' person, or much of a genuine heart-to-heart people person in general. This was _not_ her area of expertise. "I didn't run into anyone named Clockwork, just a ghost who tried to use that as a fake name." Danny's face twisted in disgust and offense, with his lips and nose wrinkling as he pulled back. It was kind of cute. _Don't think about that._ "He said his real name was Infinite after I called him a liar. Who's Clockwork?"

Danny stopped washing his hands, but didn't turn the faucet off. "He's, uh, he's a good ghost. Like me. Okay, not _like-_ like me but - you know." He shoved his hands back into the water. "Good. Like me. Not half-human, but good. Like Dani. Not - yeah. Good. Also Cujo's not my dog. I know I've shouted that at you a bunch, but I really want to reiterate that - "

"Stop rambling, please. I don't really care."

Danny hunched forwards. "Sorry."

Valerie reached over and turned off the faucet. "Danny, I know you're messed up right now." She gently grabbed one of his hands, and Danny went rigid. "What happened to you was _horrible,_ and I'm so glad you're alive. And I really, really want you to stay that way. I've had time to deal with you being part ghost, and honestly I care too much about you to let that change anything. This ghost, Infinite, paid me to talk to you. He actually gave me twenty dollars just to come talk to you, and said it was part of his plan to make sure you didn't die. I think he was like you," she hesitated, "and Vlad."

Danny yanked his hand back and took several steps back, nearly losing his balance when he bumped into the toilet. "Wait. Wait, that's a lot - you know about Vlad? That's a lot of a lot of things and all of them are bad. You can't know that! Does he know you know? Are you in danger? If he knows you know then you're in danger!"

"Okay, calm down." Valerie held up her hands, and Danny automatically tried to shove his back under the faucet. "First of all, you're going to mess up your hands if you keep trying to do whatever that is. Second, I'm _fine._ I found out after we got Dani away from him, and I've just avoided him since. Can we focus on the weird ghost now? You know, first humanoid ghost who's been in Amity since you got injured? The guy who bribed me to talk to you and then randomly exploded into black sparks?"

Danny froze. He straight up froze, and just stared at her for nearly twenty seconds. "What?"

"I've had a weird day," Valerie said.

Danny glanced down at his hand, swallowed, and slowly turned back to Valerie. "What was his name? Infinite?"

"Apparently. Or Infinite Hour, if you're mad at him." Valerie replied, "Said he'd looked into me, and had a sister with ten spiders and a battle axe. Plus he really didn't want me to mention him by name. Danny, what the hell is going on?"

"I... I don't know, Val." He suck down, sitting on the closed toilet and still staring at his hands. "I don't know. I don't know who that is, or why this is happening, or..." He swallowed again, and took several deep breaths. "I don't know who that is. But I really, really need to talk to Clockwork. I need to get to the Ghost Zone, and I can't do it myself. My powers aren't working. Nothing is working." He put his head in his hands again for only a second, quickly pulling back to stare at his hands. "Too much is happening. I just want everything to stop."

For a moment, Valerie just stood there, not quite able to piece together if there was anything else she could do. But the pieces fell into place in that moment, and she knelt down beside Danny and placed her hand on his knee. "I have Sunday off. We could go together, if you wanted? It might be safer."

Danny shrugged. "I don't want to hurt you."

Valerie rolled her eyes and gave him a light nudge in the ribs. "I once went unconscious in space in that suit. No ghost can actually hurt me, and no half-ghost can either. Let me help you." She moved her hand back to his knee, and decided to not mention her encounter with Skulker. "I know now. It's the least I can do."

He didn't flinch away from her touch. Valerie considered that progress. "Promise your suit's blast proof?"

"I promise." _Why does that matter?_

"Okay," Danny ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath, steadying himself. "Okay. Let's do it."

.-.

A few hours away from Amity Park, in a lakeside tourist town called Raine, a tall human woman sat at a desk. Strands of ashen blonde hair dropped from the poor attempt at a bun she'd twisted atop her head, and she chewed on an ivory coloured pen with _GIUU_ inscribed on the side in gold. On the desk in front of her, she'd scattered paintings and pictures, with articles weaving around them. Some of them were over two hundred years old, and every piece of information depicted the same tall, red-eyed, white-to-black haired man.

She dropped the pen and clasped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, Andrew..." She swiped the hand through her hair, pushing some of the strands back. The grease in her hair felt odd against her fingers; she hadn't gone this long without a shower since university. "What had you gotten yourself into?"

She could only barely begin to understand what all this meant. None of it was adding up, and her husband's claims - ghosts? Time travel? Some sort of world-encapsulating void? - each was more ridiculous than the last.

And yet, those men had been desperate to get their hands on it. And to get their hands on her son.

Fury rose up in her chest and she swiped the nonsense notes onto the ground. _These_ had been worth killing over? These were worth destroying her family, and her son? What kind of lie had her husband been living?!

She slammed her hands down on the remaining notes, ready to swipe them off the desk as well, but something caught her eye. A date - late November, 1999 - and a place - Raine Children's Hospital. She remembered that day; there was a framed picture on the office's wall taken an hour afterward, showing their baby boy in his first cast. There'd been crashes in the hallway, and her husband had poked his head out of the room to look. He had told her not to worry, that it was nothing more than an unruly patient, and then disappeared 'to find a nurse' as soon as the noises stopped. He'd come back with bulging pockets and sweets for the kids instead.

Now, she was looking at a disk labeled with that date, that place, and 'security footage.'

It wasn't difficult to find something to run it on. It wasn't difficult to watch the footage it contained. From several different angles, a teenage boy no older than her son, dressed in modern day hospital wear, tried to save a woman from a literal flying green squid. It ended when he was enveloped in a rush of black sparks, which whisked him and the squid away.

The disk went back in its case, and she thought back to that same hospital with her son only a few weeks ago, as the news played a 'feel-good story' about that exact same boy. He'd been found months after nearly dying, alive and mostly well with no explanation. Her son had been furious, and yelled about publicity stunts. She'd just been tired.

She scooped up the notes she'd thrown to the floor, and dropped them back in their boxes. She brought out the packing tape, and sealed them up as best as she could.

The fury was back, twisting through her chest and clawing at her heart. Her husband and these men had been so invested in a boy her son's age. No wonder they'd attacked her son like that. No wonder they had made those claims against him. Now after everything they'd tried, they expected her to give these notes up willingly? No. _No._

Those men in white could pry her husband's research from her cold, dead hands.

* * *

That last scene was absolutely not originally intended to appear this early on, but I'm impatient and love the disaster family with the Terrible Crew. It's also more fun for other reasons, which'll start to make sense soon!

Also, you would think revealing Infinite's name would make me stop calling him my Terrible Man. It won't. He's terrible and the world must know.

Rewrite notes!

Googling 'how to be a time traveler' just gives you a few vague references to people who were suspected of being time travelers and a wikihow page on how to be indiscreet about your pretend time traveling. None of that could really help Danny, so he got nothing. Which was kind of disappointing, since I was originally intending to lead into him learning some skills to figure out when you end up, but I'm not too bummed out about it.

One of the most common criticisms I get on my stories is that they are 'confusing.' While in Connections that is mostly for effect, I want to try and avoid that here. Granted, I also have _no idea_ what's so confusing about them, so I'm trying to cover any major bases. If I ever go over the top with the recaps, please let me know!

That last scene actually relates to one of the main reasons I decided on a rewrite in the first place! I struggled with one scene related to it for ten months because it didn't have enough weight to justify existing, which sucked because it was a major 'get some answers' scene which would lead to a lot more answers. This time around, I'm making sure that scene works from the get-go. It also gives me a chance to reference the local sharp and cool boy, who really sticks his neck out for people. And now everyone who read the old version is mad at me for that joke! :D

I think I had one of Infinite's 'sisters' appear in the old version in a way that was really weird and vague. She didn't add a lot to the story when she appeared, either. But this time, all the people my Terrible Man know get character! All these Terrible People are getting development! So enjoy the offhand mention to my girl, her purpose will start to make sense soon.

That's all for now! I've edited this chapter like three different times.

So, thoughts?


	6. Over Your Head

I assume y'all don't want to hear my excuses and reasons, so I won't give them. This chapter's like 6k anyway, that's long for this fic's standards.

Onwards!

* * *

 **Part 6:**

Aside from his apparently fruitless searches for the white-cloaked ghost, his attempts at uncovering the Guys' in White's 'Primary Objective', and trying to lessen the stress his dear Maddie and Daniel were under, Vlad was still the CEO of several multimillion dollar companies as well as, unfortunately, Amity Park's mayor. While he did absolutely have the money to take an extended leave of absence, that never looked good for his image. If he wanted to move forwards with his political plans, he had to be aware of that annoying factor.

Which unfortunately meant that when Daniel's friends somehow managed to successfully and legally book a meeting with him in his mayoral office, he couldn't turn them down.

He strongly considered replacing his secretary as she brought the two in. Instead he gave her a professional smile and waited until the door was closed. His smile dropped the second the door clicked. "No, I'm not letting you two see Daniel."

"He prefers Danny," Mr. Foley said, and was ignored.

Miss Manson leaned forwards, her fingers entwined as she propped her head upon them. "We're not here to talk about Danny. We're here to talk about you, _Plasmius._ "

Vlad raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "You have ten minutes." They'd already wasted one of them.

Miss Manson sat back up straight. Mr. Foley followed her lead. "We need to use your portal," she said.

Vlas barely stifled his sigh. "And exactly why would I allow you into my home?" _This is going to turn into a blackmail attempt. I know that look._

"We need to talk to Frostbite about Danny." Mr. Foley said. "It's urgent, and Jazz won't let us use the Fenton Portal."

"With good reason," Vlad interjected, "am I wrong to assume that you two were the behind yesterday's rather poor attempt to break into their home?"

There was a moment of silence. "That doesn't matter right now," Miss Manson said, and confirmed Vlad's suspicions. "What matters is that there's something going on with Danny, and we're going to help him whether he's mad at us or not."

Vlad didn't shift from his unimpressed expression. _Do I really need to be here, or can I send a duplicate to do something productive and focus on that?_ "Define 'something.'"

Miss Manson didn't falter either. "We'll tell you if you let us use your portal."

"And if not -" _ah,_ so the technology-wise one would be blackmailing him. Vlad could see it in his eyes. "We have proof that you've interacted with Skulker. Danny's parents know that's the ghost that hurt him - what would they think if we told them that their _friend_ was in cahoots with Skulker?"

"I'd imagine that'd cause quite a few problems with your evil plans," Miss Manson said, smug, like this was a victory.

Vlad leaned forwards an ince and stared at the two teens. "And you assume they don't already know of this?" Their faces fell. Vlad's grin grew. It didn't matter that his lie was even less solid than their so-called 'blackmail,' all that was important was the delivery. "You have been keeping your distance, but I have not. You have nothing that could turn them against me, and are a pair of fools to think otherwise." He straightened up. "Now get out of my office and stay away from Daniel."

A feeling of warmth curled in his core as both of Daniel's friends sat up straighter.

"Jeez, don't do -" Vlad didn't let the white-cloaked ghost finish before he'd whipped around and leapt from his seat to pin the other ghost to the wall, instantly in his Plasmius form. The sound of an ectoblaster _whirred_ behind him, and with a brief glance Vlad saw that Daniel's friends were at his back, weapons focused on their shared target.

Vlad gripped a handful of the ghost's cloak's collar and yanked him back to tangibility before he could escape. "Who _are you?_ " He snapped, and smashed his head against the wall. The ghost's hood fell back and bright red eyes stared back at Vlad. There was _something_ familiar about his features that Vlad couldn't quite place. "Talk, or -" Vlad moved to slam his head again, but his grip slipped, and jostled the stopwatch hanging around his neck. The ghost automatically tensed.

"Okay, ease up on the touching." He tried to guide Vlad's hand away from the accessory. He failed. "If it's that important to you, then my name is Jeffrey."

"That's the worst fake name I've ever heard," Miss Manson said.

"Hey! It's a great name!" 'Jeffrey' said, "It literally means _I come in peace._ Which I do, so what's everyone's deal with the guns? All I've done is talk to people, steal like two _super_ unimportant things, and rearrange tables!"

Miss Manson scoffed. "Don't lie. You blew up my room."

"You destroyed a hospital," Vlad snarled.

"You're a creep with a weird interest in Danny." Mr. Foley finished, "What do you want with him, anyway?!"

'Jeffrey' frowned at all of them, and still squirmed in Vlad's hold. "I was just going to tell you all not to be rash." Vlad squeezed his fist and once more stopped him before he could turn intangible. "That y'know, teamwork makes the dream work. We don't have to fight. You guys should work together, help your buddy Danny Fenton out 'cause he definitely needs it."

"You don't know anything about him!" Miss Manson snapped, "You just showed up out of nowhere and started harassing us! How do we know you're not the reason Danny disappeared, or why he won't talk to us?! You've been nothing but an irritating, know-it-all _jerk_ who expects people to go along with whatever comes out of your mouth! We're not going along with your bullshit until you tell us what's going on!"

The ghost's frown became a bit more tense, and Vlad felt a jolt in his core. The warmth that alerted him to nearby ghosts changed with their strength, and used minor changes in temperature to help him differentiate one ghost he was facing from the next. But in that moment, in a second, it had gone from barely warm to _burning,_ and become an inferno in his chest that was begging him to get away.

An inferno that was far too reminiscent of Pariah Dark.

Vlad released the ghost and took a step back. He watched as 'Jeffrey' dusted off his cloak's collar and glanced down at the stopwatch before he briefly tapped a button.

"Well," he said, and turned the accessory over in his hands, "you got one thing right." The stopwatch fell back to his chest, and one thumb caught its strap. "Let me make myself clear; I'm the good guy. I'm doing what's right here and if you don't want to believe that then that's your beef, not mine. If I wanted people to like me, I would've stayed home." He stared past Vlad, to look down on Daniel's friends. "You're useful, but not necessary. None of you are." His eyes flickered back to Vlad, and Vlad saw something familiar in his frustrated, clenched jaw. _Daniel...?_ "So if you're not going to help me then stay the fuck out of my way."

There was a split second of stunned offence. Vlad opened his mouth to retort, and heard the beginning of a protest from the teenagers behind him.

Instead, the ghost's thumb slipped away from the stopwatch and lit up with black sparks.

Vlad barely had the chance to grab the two behind him and turn intangible. It did nothing to stop the attack; even without substance, they were launched back, and tumbled head over heels over head over heels over -

A jolt and the smell of smoke brought them back to tangibility, and Vlad to his human form. Car alarms blared and echoed as their ears rang.

City hall had been leveled, and was reduced to a pile of dust and rubble. While Daniel's friends panicked and scrambled to their feet, and shouted at each other about the secretary and the interns and all those other people who'd been caught inside, Vlad took a bit longer to stand.

 _That couldn't have been Daniel._ He coughed and choked on the dust that had settled in his throat. Ahead of him, the two teens tried to move a fallen bit of plaster. _It's not possible._ Vlad felt his hands move of their own accord, and pull his cellphone from a pocket to dial three numbers. _Daniel would never do this._

"911," the voice on the other end of the phone said, "what's your emergency?"

"I need an ambulance," Vlad heard his own voice say, and watched to plaster shift under Daniel's friends. "Several ambulances."

 _Daniel wouldn't do this._ He could see the ghost's face in his mind still. He could see his features superimposed over Daniel's, and tried to force the image from his mind. _That ghost was older than him. That was not him._ Vlad held his phone tighter, and heard own voice answer the questions the operator posed. _I will prove it._

As Daniel's friends - knee deep in dust and broken drywall - started to pull one of his employees from the destruction, Vlad made a choice. He needed answers. Artifacts could be replaced, but whatever it took, he would be speaking to the Master of Time.

.-.

 _[Sent 5:34 am] Val: Hey you awake yet?_

 _[Sent 5:40 am] Danny: no i died for real this time_

 _[Sent 5:41 am] Val: Hilarious. Do you want to get to the Ghost Zone or not?_

 _[Sent 5:42 am] Val: I'll be there in 5_

.-.

Danny's plan for getting into the Ghost Zone was, admittedly, bad.

He didn't want to lie to his parents, or sneak out without telling them, but there wasn't exactly another option. He could deal with the consequences of it once he talked to Clockwork. As soon as he wasn't a danger to his family anymore, he could explain everything. He'd also be able to spend time with them without feeling the need to hide in the bathroom and run his hands under ice water every time he got a bit emotional so that he didn't explode and displace the portal's ecto-filtrator which would blow up the house and -

Danny launched himself across the kitchen and shoved his hands into the freezer. A bag of frozen peas turned his fingertips numb within a few seconds, but Danny waited a bit longer before pulling his hand back out.

"Okay Fenton, deep breaths. Stay calm, don't panic, you've _got_ this." He just had to last until he got to Clockwork. Clockwork would fix this, or make it easier to control, or _something._

His phone vibrated intensely on the counter where he'd left it and destroyed the silence of Fenton Work's kitchen. Danny snatched it, but the echo of the vibration still hung in the air. For a second, Danny winced and listened. The floor above him didn't creak, so _in theory_ he was safe from any awkward explanations for now - plus, Valerie was finally here.

Danny gently opened the back door and motioned her in. He winced at the sound of her boots on the kitchen floor. _Good thing Vlad didn't come back last night - he'd definitely hear us._

Valerie opened her mouth, about to speak, but Danny had already started to gesture in a frantic shushing motion. He let the silence settle before taking a couple slow steps back, and motioned for her to follow.

The basement's door practically shrieked when he pushed it open. The hinges rubbed against each other to let out a horrible high-pitched noise. Vlad's cat, who was somewhere upstairs, also started to shriek.

Valerie grabbed Danny by the arm, yanked him down the stairs, and kicked the door closed behind her. The silence of the morning was destroyed, and as they headed into the lab Danny could hear footsteps on the floor above them.

"Okay, what's our plan?" Valerie let go of his arm as Danny fumbled for the light switch. After a second of rubbing the wall, the lab was doused in artificial light.

"We get into the Ghost Zone before my parents figure out I'm down here," he said. "We go to Clockwork, we get some answers, and -" he frowned at her, "- did you get a haircut?"

Valerie, who had her hair in shoulder length cornrows, stared at him. "Around two months ago."

"Oh. I didn't notice that before." He shook his head, "Not the point. We need to just go." Danny ducked to the side and dragged the door to the weapon's vault open. After a second of hesitation - and several footstep-like thumps from the floor above - he grabbed a specter deflector, a pair of spectral noise neutralizers, and a lipstick blaster. "Do you want anything from here?"

There was a weird flash, and Danny looked over his shoulder to see Valerie in her suit. "Nah," she said, "I'm good."

"Show off," Danny muttered, and dragged the door closed.

The thumps were getting more and more footstep-like. Standing in front of the portal now, he pulled out his phone and sent a text to his sister. ' _Hey - I'm okay. Valerie's taking me to talk to Clockwork. Cover for me, please?'_ After a second, he sent another. ' _Love you, you're the best sister ever.'_

"Ready?" Valerie asked.

Danny stifled a yawn and drowned the feeling of dread in his stomach. He wrapped the specter deflector around his waist, but didn't turn it on. "Ready."

.-.

Vlad wished it hadn't come to this. But, here he was, one of Daniel's friends at both his sides, as he adjusted the specifics on the flight suits he had given them.

"That should allow you to keep up with me," he said, and didn't bother to look them in the eye. "If you fail to do so, I will not be turning back to find you."

He heard them acknowledge it, but Vlad's mind was on the two items he'd hidden on his person; the crown of fire and the skeleton key. They would be heading to the Far Frozen first, and to the Master of Time after that. They would be getting answers, no matter what.

Vlad led the way, and ignored the quiet voice that still insisted that if Clockwork cared about those artifacts he would have taken them back months ago.

.-.

"Do you have a map?" Valerie asked after they'd already been flying for twenty minutes.

"Uh..." Danny coughed. "No, but keep flying this way. I'll tell you if you need to turn. The Ghost Zone changes around a lot, I know where I'm going."

"Didn't it take you a full semester to remember where your locker was last year?"

Danny's face flushed. He pulled back from Valerie a bit, and wind whipped in his face when Valerie swerved her hoverboard around a rock. "Who told you that?"

"The school had a memorial service for you," she replied, "Lancer told everyone."

Danny bit the inside of his cheek and glared off into the distance. He didn't want to think about that. Or Lancer, shaming him like that - if he actually _had_ died, Danny would have come back as a full ghost specifically to make sure Lancer knew that wasn't cool.

They passed by another empty island, and continued their flight through the expanse of empty Zone. There were no doors, and hadn't been for a while. _Speaking of full ghosts..._

"Where is everybody?" Danny asked.

"Do I look like I know?" Valerie replied, which was fair.

"Uh, no - Val, the Ghost Zone isn't supposed to be empty. It's always filled with ghosts and doors, unless you go super far out. I haven't even seen an ectopus, and normally those things pop up every five minutes." Danny shook his head, and spoke more to himself than Valerie. He'd seen more ghosts in the past than he had in the present. Aside from whatever had happened at the hospital, he hadn't even sensed a ghost in his own time. "Something's wrong."

"Do you want to go back?" Valerie asked, "Because if you don't tell me how you know where you're going I'm taking you back home anyway."

"Why does it matter?" Danny asked, a lot harsher than he had meant to. He flinched, an apology already on his tongue, but Valerie wasn't phased.

"Look, I don't know about you, but I don't have getting killed because I went somewhere I knew nothing about on my list of _100 Things I Want to Do Before College_." She said, "So start talking Fenton, or I'm taking you home."

Danny swallowed. One hand made its way off Valerie and towards the center of his chest, which nearly made him lose his balance. He didn't have an explanation, not yet, but Clockwork was calling him. From the second he'd entered the Ghost Zone there's been a pull where his core should be that guided him forwards. He knew it was to Clockwork's tower, but didn't have a good reason for why or how he knew that. It wasn't a painful pull either; it was more like someone had decided to casually pull him forwards and point him in the right direction.

Clockwork wanted him to come. He probably knew about the time travel powers already, and was just waiting for Danny to initiate it as part of some ridiculous lesson about personal growth or something. _Classic Clockwork._

Now he just needed to figure out how to explain that to Valerie in a way that actually made sense.

.-.

The Far Frozen was a long and uncomfortable flight away. The suits got them there, but there hadn't been much time to learn how they worked. Danny had always made flying look so easy, but Tucker had ended up upside down multiple times.

He'd also crashed into the snow, but so had Sam, so he didn't really feel bad about that.

Their teeth chattered as the two of them struggled their way out of the snowbank and back towards Vlad, who was floating an inch above the thigh-high snow. "Odd," he said, and he turned slowly to examine the flurries around them. "We weren't exactly subtle in our approach, yet there's no one here to greet us."

"Don't they hate you?" Sam asked, and clearly clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from clacking.

Vlad frowned, but barely glanced her way. "You have no knowledge of this land's customs, do you?" He didn't wait for her response. "All who pass through the Far Frozen are guests, and will be treated as such. They welcome and assist all weary travelers."

"Except for the ones who steal their most important treasure and take it on a joyride through space and time." Tucker said, deadpan.

"I was a different man than," Vlad said, barely loud enough to be heard. "If no one is coming to greet us, than something must be wrong. They should be here - every other time I have paid them a visit, they at least sent a few to tell me to leave."

It was at that moment that Vlad was kicked in the face.

He was launched back rather dramatically, making a perfect Vlad-shaped hole in the snowdrift. The small figure in a parka and mitts floated down slowly, landing just in front of the two humans.

She pulled her hood back before either of them could reach for a weapon. "Wait. Sam, Tucker? What are doing here?" Danny's clone-cousin said, and narrowed her eyes at the man behind them. "And why did you bring _him?_ "

"Hello, Danielle," Vlad started to say, still in the hole. "It's so nice to see you again - " a random, small avalanche suddenly buried him.

"Thanks," Sam said, "I hate his voice."

"We're trying to help Danny," Tucker explained, "he's mad at us, but there's this weird jerk ghost after him -"

Dani didn't let him finish. "Danny's _alive?!_ "

.-.

Valerie took one look at Clockwork's tower and frowned. "What came first, the name or the aesthetic?"

Danny shrugged and held open the door for her. "Probably the aesthetic. Clockwork's ridiculously old, English probably wasn't even a thing when he formed."

"Don't ghosts have their own language?" Valerie asked as Danny followed her in. "Does Clockwork mean anything in that?"

Danny shrugged once more. "Val, I'm so bad at the ghost language. Do you know how many weird idioms it has? There's one about eating cold soup that basically means 'if you hesitate you die.' Ghosts don't even eat." He raised his voice and took the lead. "Hey, Clockwork! Are you home?"

No reply.

"That's rude," Valerie said, and placed one hand on her ectoblaster. "I thought you said he'd know we were coming."

"I did." _He should've._ "I've only been here a couple times, but - oh, maybe he's upstairs! Come on, there's stairs further in."

Clockwork's tower was exactly as Danny remembered it. The walls weren't very defined, and in most spaces they were more of a patchwork of empty void and gears. In the others, they were an old, elegant blue-grey stone that also made up the floors. Blank mirror-portals hung on them, one or two flickering with scenes of some tropical beach. There were a few chairs and side tables placed artfully around, which looked comfortable, but didn't seem very well used.

In fact, most of Clockwork's tower was covered in a fine layer of dust.

"Danny," Valerie grabbed his shoulder, "do we go up those stairs?" She pointed to a stone staircase, and Danny felt his core twist. There was something about the stone, or maybe the brickwork, that was pulling him forwards.

"Yeah, hold on," his core led him on, and Danny rested a palm on the side of the wall.

There was a jolt, a creak, and the walls around them opened up. The void and gears melted away, replaced with ancient stonework that framed huge windows, and a well managed sliding glass door at Danny's fingertips. A huge island slowly started to unfold in front of him. Piece by piece, seven towers, several dead trees, and a massive island appeared on the other side of the glass door.

"That's not normal ghost stuff, is it?" Valerie asked. Danny slid the door open and stepped outside with a silent shake his head. Valerie was right on his heels.

The island was bigger than a city block. Along the outskirts, there were five more slanted, gear-covered towers in a symmetrical pattern. They all had the same one-way glass doors Danny had stepped through. There were a few sparse bushes and trees, one of which had a piece of paper and several kitchen knives sticking out of it. Danny gathered them all up and examined the elegant cursive of the note taped to the tree.

' _Please stop stabbing the plants and find constructive ways to work out your anger. You're dulling the knife set. - CW._

 _Ps: yelling at me is not constructive.'_

But that was nothing compared to the huge, blue-grey stone building in the center.

It had to be at least twenty stories tall, probably more, with a flat roof. It was nearly as wide as Casper High from all angles, and wasn't tilted like the outer towers. No gears decorated the outer walls, and the few windows that were visible were small and covered. A pair of flat, thick silver doors were closed on the ground floor, with no divots, handles, or obvious access inside.

"Hey, Danny." Closer to the building, Valerie had knelt in front of some sort of large rock epitaph. "Look at this."

Danny's steps were heavy as he joined her. He shoved the note in his pocket and kept the kitchen knives in a handful at his chest. There was a small metal plate bolted onto the rock, engraved with something in a dialect of ghost Danny could barely understand. One word had been multilated; it looked a bit like someone has taken a blowtorch to it and horribly warped the metal. It was the only word like that. Whoever had attacked the plaque was careful not to damage anything else.

Danny tapped the first word. "Uh... I think that word means _apology?_ The next one might be _sad._ Uh, I think that one is _outcast,_ that one might be _leader..._ yeah, sorry Val, I have no idea what this says. Oh, wait!" He poked a word near the bottom. "That one means _dad!_ Uh, next to it might be... _day?_ Father's day? Wait, no, I'm wrong, day has another letter. It's not night, uh... maybe _time?_ Dad Time? That doesn't make any sense..."

Valerie rolled her eyes as Danny's rambling came to an awkward end. "Not that," she fished something out of the bush. "Look." She held up a soccer ball.

"Huh. That's weird, Clockwork doesn't have any legs." He glanced at the silver doors, "Knives and sports. What is this, a high school?"

Valerie followed his gaze. "I thought you said he was super old and lived alone."

"I did. He does." Danny swallowed, "Want to help me break into his house?"

"Why not?"

They approached the first floor's window, and Danny gave it a poke. It was surprisingly solid, considering he was still human. _So much for humans being the ghosts here._

Valerie pulled him back by his shirt. "So, before I break this, do you want to check if that door's unlocked?"

"It doesn't have any handles. I don't know if it's even a real door," Danny said, but walked over anyway. After a second, he gave them a small push and knocked three times. "Clockwork? Are you - "

The doors crumpled up like fans, and left the doorway wide open.

Danny frowned. The pull in his core was now entirely replaced with unease. "Uh, okay. Ladies first?"

"We don't have to go in if you don't want to," Valerie said.

"No, n-no, I want to." Danny swallowed the lump in his throat and grabbed Valerie's arm when she passed by. He matched her steps, and they entered the large stone room together. It looked... homely. Lived in.

The room itself was huge and ovular, made of the same stone that pretty much every structure on this island seemed to be made from. The ceilings were tall, well over twelve feet up, and there were a few doors along the walls which led to almost-empty rooms. Most had more mirrors - one just had a clay bowl of water on a circular nightstand, which, comparatively, wasn't weird at all. Further in, there were a few scattered but purposeful groupings of mismatched chairs around bright rugs, a grand piano, and a long bench at a table filled with a smattering of appetizers. They weren't quite cold, and looked edible - and they were absolutely _delicious._ Danny wolfed down a plate of mini quiches in seconds.

"Are you eating the ghost food?" Valerie asked with a dry tone.

"It's good," Danny muttered, but left the rest of the appetizers alone.

Some books were scattered around as well, left on tables and between cushions. Most of them were in languages Danny didn't know, although there was one university level anatomy textbook which was heavily annotated. It was in English, but that didn't mean Danny understood any of it. There was also an impressive amount of origami scattered around and balanced in odd positions; several paper cranes were balanced on doorknobs, one seat had been coated in folded paper stars, and a paper boat had sunk in an old glass of red wine. Despite all this, the only trace of Clockwork's aesthetic was a few clockwork light fixtures and a huge framed network of gears along one wall. There was no glass covering it; Danny ran his hand along it as he passed, and the gears turned with a series of satisfying clicks.

Beyond that, at the other end of the room, there were two short hallways to the left and right. The right twisted up a set of huge, ominous stairs. The left turned to a kitchen. It had a fresher look to the stone it was made from, and there was a framed piece of needlepoint that said ' _Beware of spoons.'_ Danny held the note up beside it; the needlepoint was in Clockwork's handwriting.

In all, the kitchen seemed strangely modern; there was a sink with running water, a glass-top stove, and a fridge with an ice dispenser. There was one open jar of peanut butter sitting on the counter with a butter knife that had clearly been licked off balanced on top of it. Danny set his collection of knives from the tree down and replaced the peanut butter's lid before flipping it over. The _best before_ date wasn't until 2033.

There was a counter island with four stools at it in the middle of the kitchen, and a pantry beyond that filled to the brim with snacks and cooking supplies. It looked like a family's kitchen, and Clockwork confusing art was the only trace of him in it.

"Ghosts don't need to eat," Danny said as an answer the question that wasn't asked, and closed the kitchen door behind him. He started towards the stairs, and did his best not to let his hands shake.

"Danny," Valerie grabbed his sleeve, "let's go back to the first building."

"Why does Clockwork have a massive secret house?" He pulled her hand off and spun around to face her. He already had his foot on the first stone step. "No, why does he have _six?!_ Who needs that many mirrors? Why were these hidden? Why is any of this happening? Why is there so many human things, and passive-aggressive notes, and - and spoons!" He gestured back at the kitchen, "Why would you take the time to stitch something like that?! Needlepoint is _hard,_ why would Clockwork -"

"Danny!" Valerie slapped her hand over his mouth. "Maybe it's not his house. He's one person in one building, right?"

Danny pulled her hand down. "I mean, he made a bunch of weird duplicates that one time, but -"

Valerie wasn't done. She put a finger to his lips. "And you said he was the Master of Time, right? How do you know this place doesn't belong to the Master of Space, or Master of Death, or something like that? Maybe they're not his house. There's a saying that the right answer is normally the simplest one, right? Doesn't that make more sense?" Very slowly, Valerie lowered her hand.

"Right." It did make a lot of sense; if these buildings belonged to someone else, and Danny had functionally taken the back door out of Clockwork's tower, it did make a bit of sense why it was hidden and why it seemed so unlike him. Ghosts liked privacy, and they also liked having a few close connections, but a few things didn't add up. The 'back door' had been so dramatic, and Clockwork's tower had been so empty compared to this building. And besides that... "But all of those other towers looked the same. And I've _never_ heard of a Master of Death, or Space, or anyone but Clockwork! And people don't even think I know him! Plus, human food. Ghosts don't need to eat, and making food that good takes so much effort. Clockwork could and would be working with that effort, Val. He's kind of a workaholic."

"Yeah, so you've said." Valerie pointed past him, up the stairs. "Look, if you really want answers, why don't you ask that dude?"

Danny whipped around. "What dude?"

On top of the stairs, mostly around the corner, was a young, white, almost androgynous person with a brown colour scheme and a sweater vest. He - probably, maybe - had short brown hair that had probably been neatly combed to the side once, but was now mussed and stuck up. He didn't look like a ghost. He looked like a nerdy human teenager.

That was all Danny saw before the dude ducked back around the corner and Danny heard him _run._

"Hey, wait!" Danny shot after him, scrambling up far more stairs than were necessary. A door slammed to his right when he finally made it up, and Danny shot towards the sound without a second thought. There were other doors and stone halls, but Danny spared them no time; the door had been slammed too hard, and had swung back open. The nerd's hand reached out to pull it back closed.

Danny stuck his hand in the door, holding it open as the other human tried to pull it closed. "Hey, I just want to talk! Who's house is this?"

"Not yours!" Was the defensive and nervous reply, a bit higher pitched than Danny had been expecting. He sounded a lot like Danny's classmates. This man had an Amity Park accent.

"I know that! Where's Clockwork?" He could hear a faint voice in the background, lower than the other but not loud enough to make out any words. "I'm not going to hurt you! I just want to know what's going on!"

"Then come back later?" The man's voice shook, and his hold on the door weakened. He started whispering and muttering, apparently speaking to the other person in the room. "Hey, breathe, he's not coming -"

Danny yanked the door open.

At first, he just saw the human, nerdy, Amity Park native teen move forwards with the door, lose his balance, and hit the ground hard. Danny started to help him up, but looked up again to see the room. Some sort of Disney movie was playing on a mirror, providing the only light in the room aside from two glowing, red eyes.

"Run," the person on floor said, but Danny didn't get the chance.

A blur of purple and blue lunged at him, and shifted in a terrifying mass that Danny _couldn't_ focus on. There was a punch he couldn't block, an ectoblast he couldn't shield, a kick and a bite that came from everywhere and nowhere at once, and he was thrown into a wall.

Except there wasn't a wall by him anymore. He tried to turn on his spector deflector, but Danny didn't have the arms to do it. He didn't have anything. There was nothing. There was nothing anywhere.

"I don't want to fight you!" Danny shouted into the void, and the void _laughed_ back.

And then there was a gunshot.

Danny gasped and clutched the center of his chest as his core heaved. He was back in the hallway, on the ground. There were screams in the background, although they barely registered over the ringing in his ears. Valerie stood a few feet away from him with her ectoblaster smoking. Danny's leg was bleeding, and a quick check confirmed that was from the bite. _Ew._

The other teen was by his side in a second, a first aid kit in hand.

"Just get him out of sight, don't _hurt_ him!" He snapped at Valerie, who gave him an annoyed and confused glare.

"Who are you?" She said, and took aim again when the purple and blue mass of pure evil started to sit up.

 _Purple and blue. That's Clockwork's colour scheme._ Those thoughts were pushed out of Danny's mind when the antiseptic stung his wound.

"Tyler," there was a bit of hesitation in his voice, but Tyler pushed past the stumble in his words. "Look, I'm going to have to patch him up anyway, so don't mess him up. He'll calm down when he can't see Phantom." He jerked a thumb at Danny.

"Hey!" Danny's protest was raspy. Valerie simply nodded and fired another shot when the mass dove at them again. "How do you know me?" _Also, why are you in the Ghost Zone?_

Tyler gave him a deadpan look. "You've all made getting insurance hell." He pulled out a pair of scissors. "I'm cutting your pants, if he could bite through the denim than your leg is in danger." Valerie fired another shot, which blasted the mass into another room, and Tyler turned on her instead. "Don't hurt him! I just told you that!"

"He attacked Danny!"

"Oh, boo-hoo, people do that every day. It's your own fault you idiots don't know how to listen!"

"I just wanted to know where Clockwork was!" At some point, this had turned into a shouting match. Focused on screaming his frustration and bleeding leg, Danny almost missed when several more forms appeared in the hallway around them.

An Observant snapped their fingers and ripped the ectoblaster from Valerie's hand, and yanked her out of her suit a second later. Three grabbed her as a forth slapped an ectoplasmic gag over her mouth. They turned to Danny and Tyler next.

"Step away from the hybrid, or we will remove the protections your association with the Ghostwriter grants you." One Observant said.

"Those are official?" Tyler squeaked, already backing away from Danny. He spared neither of his fellow humans an apologetic look.

"You will explain what led to this invasion," an Observant said. "Who else was present for this?"

"Just me," Tyler lied.

"A blue _something_ tried to kill me!" Danny said, and Tyler gave him a glare that could've curdled milk.

"You are intruding!" Several Observants snapped, and hauled Danny off the floor. "You have entered hallowed grounds. You have forfeited your right to a defense."

"What?!" This was a joke. It had to be. Any second now, Clockwork was going to show up, and - and - _unless that had been Clockwork attacking me, because he'd gone feral or something, and no one's coming to save me._ "You can't - I just wanted to talk to Clockwork!"

The Observants ignored him. "Return that human to her proper realm. Her place is outside of the rules this _hybrid_ has shattered." The ones holding Valerie nodded and began to drag her, kicking and screaming, into the other room. Tyler, who still stood off to the side, did _nothing_ to help.

"Really!" Danny tried again, and held up his hands. Valerie's muffled screams had disappeared. "I - I have time powers! I needed to tell him I have time powers!"

The Observants shut up. Danny considered that a win.

" _You_ have time powers?" Tyler said. He sounded almost personally offended.

"Do not lie to us," all fifteen of the Observants who were still present said in sync.

"I'm not! I can time travel!" Danny was panicking, and he doubted it mattered if they believed him; they'd probably get a demonstration either way. _Sorry about your secret house, Clockwork._ "There's black sparks," their eyes narrowed a fraction as Danny fumbled for his phone. "And then I go back in time and stuff explodes, and I just really don't want to hurt anyone. I've been keeping track of how long I've been gone and everything and I just - please, I just want to talk to Clockwork. I don't know what I'm doing. I need help."

The silence hung over them. Tyler cleared his throat.

"If, um, if he does have time powers, and he is here, you aren't technically..." he trailed off at the Observants' glares.

"The sparks are black, not another colour?" An Observant asked.

Danny swallowed. "Uh, yes...?" The Observants practically hissed.

"In that case, we charge you, Daniel James Fenton, also known as Danny Phantom, with the most heinous crime in our realm: _associating_ with Infinite Hour."

Danny stared at them. "Wait, _wha_ -" the Observants snapped, and a gag wrapped around his mouth.

"Your sentence will be determined by the High Council at once." The Observants seemed almost smug, and with another snap, Danny was suddenly in the middle of them, his arms pinned at his side. "You will not escape punishment, _Phantom._ "

Tyler whipped one of Clockwork's medallions at his head.

The Observants turned on the other human as they snatched it out of the air, screaming at him in old ghost. Tyler stood still, not focused on the Observants, as he gave Danny a tiny nod.

The black sparks shot off Danny's fingers a second later.

* * *

What, did you think these fools were actually going to meet up and talk to each other? Honestly, it's like you don't even know me.

Nah, I'm kidding. They'll get there soon.

Rewrite notes!

I adore Dani, but in the old version, she just sort of... showed up. I decided that this time around I'll give her time to learn about the situation in her own way - after all, she's been in the Ghost Zone this whole time. She'll have plenty of her own information to bring to the table.

I realized that I never actually showed Clockwork's full house in the old version. If I'm remembering correctly, I had some vague plans for it, but they never actually came to fruition before I decided to do the rewrite. That's probably for the best; they weren't exactly solid before. Now you get to see them _and_ I get to practice describing settings!

Tyler is... interesting. I wasn't sure how and when I wanted to include him, just that he'll have a minor role to play in helping Danny come to understand a bit more about his powers. I was hesitant to have him appear this early, but I adore him. He's just a good dude. He plays his small part well. I would like to say, though, that Danny made a lot of assumptions throughout this chapter, _especially_ when he saw Tyler. Almost all of them are wrong.

That's it for now! I have the next two chapters written, but we're all aware by now that that doesn't really mean anything. I am, however, easily influenced by people being nice to me - and that one person who messaged me on tumblr last week asking if I was ever going to update again.

So, thoughts?


	7. In for a Pound

It's time for _lore_ y'all, who's excited? No one? Well, that's unfortunate!

Onwards!

* * *

 **Part 7:**

Two months ago, Dani had gotten word that her only real family was dead. Danny had died in a tragic accident, the rumours said, caught up in the spew of misfortune several pessimistic scholars - Ghostwriter, mainly - had predicted would once again follow Pariah Dark's defeat. Skulker had fallen victim to it, and taken Danny along with him. They were the first of many. Pockets of madness had been popping up all around the Ghost Zone, and those who survived them came back with obsessions twisted to violence.

Most didn't survive, though.

Despite all that, somehow, Danny had come back _human._

She'd taken Sam and Tucker - and unfortunately, since he wouldn't leave, Vlad - back to the Far Frozen's village to get the full story. Frostbite had shown up early on, and hoisted Dani onto his shoulders so they could listen together.

"If you had let me speak to you instead of kicking me to the side, you would know this already." Vlad said, like anyone cared about what he had to say.

"If you had never angered the Ghost King, this would not be happening." Frostbite replied. "I know the ghost who is harassing your friend. Come, I will tell you a story. His name is Infinite Hour; this is not the first time he has appeared, and will not be the last."

"But who is he?" Sam pressed.

"One of the Ancients," Dani said, "but it gets more complicated than that."

.-.

Danny was in the Ghost Zone.

 _Huh,_ he looked at his hand, and then raised it to the gag still on his mouth. It was still stuck on - and trying to pull it off _hurt._ He lowered his hand and poked the bite wound that his advanced healing had already almost taken care of. _Okay._ _Guess I won't be meeting Candice this time._ He pulled out his phone and added another point to the list.

 _7)_ _I stay in the same world when I teleport. (Human world to human world, ghost zone to ghost zone)._

He'd ended up on an island, decorated with several now-fallen purple trees. To his left, there was a small gap of empty space before a sheer and jagged cliff face, which had its top obscured by green fog. To his right, there was a giant, untouched, dark red castle. The grounds were huge, and the architecture was fantastic - it looked so much cooler than Clockwork's weird secret towers. It also looked familiar.

Danny narrowed his eyes and limped over the fallen trees. He knew that castle. He held up a thumb, and tried to obscure some of the outer buildings. It didn't really help, but beside that, there was a group of skeletons standing on each other's shoulders trying to wash a window.

Danny jumped, tripping over a tree and landing harshly on his back. He scrambled away from Pariah's Keep, reaching the edge of the island before he remembered that he was human and _couldn't fly._ The Keep was maybe a hundred yards away, a bit further up than his island was, and intact and populated. Pariah Dark was probably there. Them meeting would _definitely_ be some sort of paradox - also, Pariah would probably just straight up murder him.

Danny scratched at the gag on his mouth, shoved a few fallen trees over, and started building himself a fort to wait this out in.

It was weird, though. Pariah Dark was _old._ Like, _Clockwork-old._ Well, maybe not that old, but still. Had his time travel powers actually taken him back over two thousand years?

.-.

There were many caves in the Far Frozen. Most of their interiors were decorated with paintings and carvings; Sam and Tucker had seen a couple before, in the cavern that documented Danny's fight against Pariah and the walls that protected the Infi Map. The one Frostbite led them to was older than both.

Five outlines were painted on the wall, existing as faceless figures with a few distinguishing traits. One was shorter and rounder than the others, with black hair that went just past her shoulders. Her skin was blue, and her clothes were a mix of navy and black. She looked like she was in shorts and a t-shirt.

"The common name for this woman is _Raine,_ due to her resemblance to a much younger ghost with the same name whom Pariah would later slaughter that she showed an attachment to. She was careful never to provide her real one where others could hear." Frostbite said, "She excelled with telekinesis, and once reportedly paralyzed a battalion of Pariah Dark's skeletons with a simple snap of her fingers."

Beside her was an apparent man with pale skin and clothing in various shades of brown. He was thin and stringy, with his stick-like stature standing out among the other figures.

"For this man, his given name is based from a fragment of an overheard conversation. He is known as _Turn,_ and was a medic. He saved many ghosts from a second death."

Another man, a bit taller and stockier than the previous one. He was blue-skinned as well, with white hair. His colour scheme was more blues and purples.

"Clockwork?" Tucker asked.

"No," Frostbite said, "although you are not the first to assume a connection. The Master of Time enters this tale later, but this man was given the name _Stop._ He was skilled in many fighting styles, including the fabled Time Power of Reality Manipulation. He could create an illusion that would fool any human or ghostly sense he chose."

Sam and Tucker nodded like they understood. Vlad wisely chose not to interrupt.

Beside him was a smaller woman in a white robe and dark red boots. Her skin was bronze, and her smoky hair was painted into a wispy braid over one shoulder that nearly reached her waist.

"This is _Hourglass,_ " Frostbite said, "she was the only one to willingly give her name. She was their leader, and the face of their actions. She spoke often to anyone who would listen about her companions, and her enemies."

Vlad nodded, gesturing for him to continue. "Yes, so I suppose you've saved the one we came here for for last?"

Frostbite and Dani glared at him for several uncomfortable seconds.

It was clear that the last figure was Infinite. He was taller than all the others, and more broad shouldered. The drawing showed his hair, and had his cloak wrapped around his body. His shirt and pants were barely visible under it. He was the most detailed out of all of them.

"Wait," Sam said, "You said their leader was the only one who gave her name. Is Infinite another nickname?"

"No," Frostbite said, "unfortunately, it is not. Most leaders in the Ghost Zone have encountered this man; I am no exception. In our first meeting he told me I'd be _cool_ , and to 'break an arm, or leg, whichever was more convenient.' He also told me to 'enjoy all the two-handed things the world had to offer' before he left." He scowled at his right arm, which was made of ice. "Those confusing predictions are commonplace when dealing with him."

"But," Dani took over, "these are the five people usually mean when they're talking about the Ancients! They're the ones who stopped the war."

"But just the war," Vlad explained, looking down to Sam and Tucker. "They did nothing to stop the aftermath."

"Hey, shut up." Dani scowled, "You came here to hear our story. If you want to stay, then I don't want to hear a word from you."

Vlad opened his mouth, closed it, and blessed the cavern with the beautiful absence of his voice.

Dani huffed, and turned to Danny's friends. "They didn't start the war either. _That part_ is credited to Warrior Boy and Dark." She pointed to the other side of the cavern, where two familiar figures stood out among a faceless crowd.

One, who looked far too much like Danny Fenton. And another, who was far too much like Danny Phantom.

.-.

The gag was still on his mouth, and Danny still hid under several fallen trees. He'd started playing on his phone after waiting for twenty minutes, and now had less than fifteen percent of his battery power.

He nearly missed when part of the Keep exploded.

.-.

The cave paintings called the one who looked like Fenton _Warrior Boy,_ and Phantom _Dark._ Allegedly, Dark had protested the names, but Warrior Boy had silenced him. He'd had some sort of control over the ghost that no one could understand - and there were doubts that Warrior Boy himself was a ghost at all. They didn't believe he was human, either. No one knew what he was.

The first series of paintings showed them among a faceless crowd, Warrior Boy always at the lead. Frostbite told his tale.

"Warrior Boy and Dark are a mysterious couple. Some reports claim they started the rebels, other that they were merely taken in to their ranks. Regardless of their origin, the two were tasked with something deemed impossible to most ghosts: breaching Pariah Dark's shields, and stealing his family away before the true revolution could begin."

Sam's breath caught in her throat. "His _family?"_

Frostbite gave a small, slow nod. "Yes. Pariah Dark had a wife, and she had two young children. The rebels that formed had no issues with them, and many thought the Queen would make a better leader. Nearly all remaining records of their plans state that the pair were to get the three of them out so that others could be dispatched to deal with the King." He continued on, gesturing towards another painting; Warrior Boy had a knife aimed at chest of an elegantly painted smoky-haired woman in red and black, with red energy circling her hands. Two small forms lied in lumps at their feet. "While Dark led the king away, Warrior Boy had his own agenda. None of the family survived the night."

.-.

A hooded figure launched themself away from the Keep and landed on Danny's island, far too close to his hiding place. Danny caught a brief look at his face, and nearly screamed - the gag was the only thing that stopped him. It was like looking in a mirror; a shorter, stockier mirror, with a nose that had obviously been broken several times, but it was still _his_ face.

He was in a black hoodie - modern - and ectoplasm-stained jeans. He had converse, also stained. It was also over _a thousand years_ before any of those would exist.

But to make matters worse, he held a toddler and a small boy in his arms, both of which scream-sobbed in old ghost - the earpieces Danny had nearly forgotten about buzzed, and Danny caught a few of their words: Dad. Mom. Home. Please.

"Oh God," okay, that was just English. Why did this dude know English two thousand years in the past? "Okay. Okay. It's gonna be okay, everything's okay, just fine, hunky-dory, oh darn that is the _worst_ saying. Nobody wants to think about buff fish." He shifted the children, the toddler - a little girl, with ribbons tying her smoky hair in place and bright red eyes - broke a hand free and did her best to punch him. Repeatedly. "Hafia please don't murder me I know know you're only three but I promised your brother I wouldn't so you owe me the same." Her brother, who was older by maybe two years, was also stained with patches of ectoplasm and was just staring at her in horror. Curly white hair hung in his face, and tears slipped from wide eyes. The little boy's eyes drifted towards Danny, and he reached a pinned arm towards him.

Danny swallowed and tried to call out, but once again, was stopped by the gag. He started trying to struggle out of his fort.

"Everything is awful and I hate it. Oh jeez, alrighty, two for three - I'm a good person. It was an accident. I'm okay. Castalia can _fight me_ no one else is dying." His lookalike took a deep breath in, and let a deeper breath out. The little girl kept screaming, and begging for her mother.

There was a furious scream in the distance.

"Ahahaha I'm gonna _die,_ " his lookalike whined, and closed his eyes. "Why did we put the box up there? Screw you history, I should've brought a jetpack. Fudge the system." When he opened his eyes again, and they were glowing red. He went back to running.

Danny finally pushed the logs off of himself and struggled to his feet. He shoved his phone back in his pocket and scrambled after his lookalike. The smaller man took a flying leap off the edge of the island, shifting the children as he grabbed onto the cliff face. He struggled to keep his grip as he started to climb, and the little girl fought the whole way.

.-.

The paintings showed Warrior Boy kneeling in front of Pariah Dark, his black fabrics stained green. "When the King found him, Warrior Boy confessed to his sins and begged for forgiveness. However, before Pariah could take revenge," Frostbite gestured to the next painting. Hourglass stood between the two, blocking Pariah Dark's mace with a battle axe. Four of the five other figures were there as well, orbiting the piece. Infinite was not one of them. "Hourglass stepped in, and said a phrase that has since been recorded hundreds of times." It was written underneath the painting. Dani read it aloud.

"' _His mistake isn't as bad as you think. Please, listen to me, I just want to help.'_ " She said, "Kind of a weird and mean thing to say to someone who just had his entire family murdered by your friend, right? But what's _actually_ weird is that Pariah hadn't killed anyone yet."

Frostbite picked up where she'd left off, "He had made some undesirable policies, never followed through on his promise to overthrow the Observants, and was more focused on the Master of Time and treasure hunting than the ghosts he should have been representing, but he was not violent." He gestured to the paintings, "as you can see, Infinite Hour is missing from these scenes. This is because, apparently, some time between when the Ancients 'left' - whatever that truly means - and when they reached this scene, he disappeared. And Hourglass in particular was very vocal about how they needed to find him." He led them deeper in, through a tunnel covered in more paintings.

The Ancients faced off against the skeletons, and placed themselves between them and the faceless populace. Turn was shown behind the front lines as he patched up injured ghosts and sent them away. The other three were always in the middle of the fight, while Warrior Boy and Dark never appeared again. Other unexplained but detailed shapes joined them. Frostbite and Dani didn't bother to explain those.

Vlad opened his mouth, ready to take the initiative, but Dani was faster. And louder. "Pariah went _crazy_ after that, though," she said, and pointed to a painting where Hourglass once again stood between him and the populace. Raine and Stop were right behind her, their hands haloed in blue. "He saw conspiracy everywhere, and destroyed a whole bunch of villages because he thought they weren't sad enough. The rebels Warrior Boy and Dark had been part of disappeared. The Ancients tried to stop as many of these raids as they could, and Hourglass apparently kept trying to talk him down."

"Pariah Dark's insanity continued to build," Frostbite said, and they came to a bend in the hall. A scene was wrapped around a corner; six towers orbited a much larger one, surrounded by several more faceless forms. A few were detailed - the Ancients weren't there, but Clockwork was, surrounded by other grey skinned or white skinned ghosts who appeared in previous paintings alongside the Ancients. "So despite the Observants' protests, the Master of Time opened his towers to those who had lost their homes. Pariah Dark, naturally, didn't appreciate this meddling."

They turned the corner to see a wall stained green. And beyond that, there was a scene - Pariah Dark stood with his skeletons, the ground in front of them stained. The only person left was Clockwork, his scar now painted on his face. Behind him however, was some sort of grotesque blob, its edges smeared and frozen in drops.

"What the hell is that?" Sam asked, and her disgust leaked into her voice. The monster looked like it was painted with ectoplasmic blood.

"We call it the Bringer of Death," Vlad would not be silenced this time. "It's some sort of beast that the Observants and Master of Time had been hiding for thousands of years. Any ectoplasmic creature who catches sight of it melts." He stepped forward, halfway through making a gesture to the painting of Clockwork. "He only survived because the Fright Knight had dragged a sword through his eye, and Pariah fled after the damage was caused. The Master of Time and King of Ghosts' army were the only survivors."

"Don't touch that," Frostbite said.

.-.

The little girl, Hafia, bit his lookalike's shoulder hard enough to draw blood. Danny stalled, stumbled over his feet, nearly tripped as his lookalike screamed. He pulled back from the wall, and his grip slipped.

And Hafia, too, slipped.

She tumbled out of his slack grip, and his lookalike sucked in a breath as he tried to snatch her back up. His fist closed around a hair ribbon, clenching it in a white-knuckle grip. Only a hair ribbon.

Danny vaulted himself over a trunk, scrambling towards the empty space between them with arms outstretched. Hafia pitched past him, and Danny flung himself off the edge after her. Sharp, pointed rocks hovered below them.

 _I'm not gonna make it._

Some sort of explosion launched him to the right, smashing into the cliff face and sending him spinning. A flowing white form dove past him, thick scarred arms wrapping up the screaming child and flipping around, protecting her from the fall.

Danny saw a face that seemed impossible to focus on and _wrong,_ with white hair that turned to black halfway down tied back but escaping its hold, and one of Clockwork's medallions around his neck. Black sparks shot off his hands - _wait._

Danny stole a glance at his own hand and saw his own black sparks. He looked back, and the other man was gone.

His own sparks ripped him from this time and sent him tumbling through the air, a portal, and - _crack._

Danny hit the porcelain of a bathroom floor, halfway draped across a toilet and one shoelace caught on the stall's door. The background sound of running water stopped as the portal closed above him.

A few footsteps turned to an awkward pause. "Danny?"

Danny groaned through his gag and stuck his hand under the door to give Candice a limp wave.

.-.

Further down the halls of the Far Frozen's cavern, there were other scenes. Infinite Hour stood between Hourglass and the Bringer of Death, trapping the beast as he stared it down. Infinite stood between Pariah and Clockwork, keeping the King away from the injured but furious Master of Time. There were many scenes where he stood by Clockwork, or between the others and danger.

Pariah and Clockwork faced off, one versus the other in the Keep. On the grounds outside, the Ancients faced hundreds of duplicates of the King. Clockwork, armed with his staff and a sword, backed Pariah into the Sarcophagus. Infinite stood in the middle of hundreds of the king's duplicates, his hands haloed in something black.

Clockwork sealed up Pariah Dark on his own. Infinite Hour annihilated the duplicates with an action that shattered the paintings with thick, black lines.

Even past that, Warrior Boy and Dark would return. Clockwork would isolate himself from everyone, and the cracks in the world would grow. Destruction and death would drain the Ghost Zone, as Warrior Boy and Dark took their revenge on anyone who had made the mistake to ever say that they pitied the King. Hundreds would die in the years that followed. The Ancients and the Master of Time would do nothing to stop it, too busy hiding, and the Observants would be useless for nearly a decade.

Sam, Tucker, and Vlad never got to this part of the tour. Instead, Vlad and Frostbite argued until they were told to leave. _Plasmius_ was still not welcome in the Far Frozen.

* * *

Rewrite notes!

This chapter took so long to get up because after having one of the minor OCs for five years, my brain came up with the cool concept of changing her hair colour. And then I suffered for a month on whether or not I was going to do it. This is how you write, y'all. You trip yourself up over a minor, irrelevant detail and suffer.

I was on the fence about exactly how much I wanted to reveal about Pariah's Fall for a while. While the full truth will come out _eventually,_ I thought this was a fun way to show the whole 'history is biased and often wrong' thing. Also, kudos to anyone who can figure out Warrior Boy's deal. It's not really a difficult mystery, but kudos nonetheless.

I don't think Warrior Boy ever _officially_ appeared in the old version! Here he is now, taking part in some good ol' baby murder. What a fun hobby. What a good dude.

I'm not going to make any comment on the next update, because we all know by now that I suck. What I _will_ say is Sam, Tucker, and Vlad are going to try the same thing Danny and Valerie did last chapter.

So... thoughts?


End file.
